Photo: 123RF
An Airbus A380 Cockpit
Can anyone actually be talked through landing a plane in an emergency?
Bob Geary from Quora asks.
I would like to discuss this hypothetical question of landing an A380 in 4 scenarios:
Some movies have given the impression that an ordinary passenger with no flying experience can land a plane safely with the assistance of someone over the radio from the control tower.
Scenario 1 – You are a passenger
Unlike driving a car, a commercial airliner is not an easy machine to handle.
First of all, you would need to know how to operate the radios and which frequency to dial. This would probably be beyond the grasp of someone with no flying experience.
As such, you would not likely know where to begin unless you can communicate with a qualified pilot.
Scenario 2 – You play with a Microsoft Flight Simulator.
As a computer geek, you may have better success if you are used to flying an A380 on your desktop simulator. You could be guided to do an auto land on a runway equipped with an Instrument Landing System.
Given the right conditions and continuous assistance from a qualified instructor, you might be able to pull it off if you can keep your cool.
Scenario 3 – You are a novice private pilot on single engine
If you are a private pilot with some flying experience, you have a better chance of understanding professional guidance from the ground.
While it’s possible to control the aircraft by selecting push buttons and turning knobs with instructions over the radio, flying manually by using the sensitive side-stick of the Airbus A380 requires a lot of practices and skills.
As such, if you were to have the urge to hand-fly the plane, it would be a very difficult endeavor. Even professional pilots have to go through years of training and re-training in a full flight simulator.
Scenario 4 – An off-duty pilot travelling as a passenger
It is really quite unlikely that all pilots become incapacitated during a flight. The Helios disaster is a remarkable exception.
But there have been cases where one pilot of a smaller plane has been disabled by a heart attack and another
non-pilot was able to safely bring down the plane.
On long-haul flights, pilot incapacitation isn’t a major problem as most airlines would have four pilots onboard.
On short-haul flights where there’s only the captain and first officer, the two-pilot incapacitation issue could pose some problems.
In such an instance, the flight attendant may have to page for any off-duty pilot travelling onboard to help out.
Conclusion
Having an off-duty pilot on the same flight would be the greatest help to bring the plane home safely.
If he is qualified on the A380, he need not require any guidance to land. If not, he could be talked down easily without much fuss.
However, if you’re a pro at the flight sim game, your time spent playing on your computer would not go amiss should such a situation arise while you’re onboard the plane.
See a video here on ‘How YOU can land a passenger aircraft in 20 steps!’