Wouldn't he be directed to attempt a CAT IIIA (or B) ILS autolanding?

Edit: see sample video of the procedure here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIaMALJjOEc

Edit II: see the same guy "remotely" guiding a random person to land using the autoland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7WMQUDGDD4

Autoland would definitely be preferable, a CAT III ILS would be ideal although you can still autoland off a CAT I beam. CAT IIIs tend to be limited to big airports due to cost and restrictions on the surrounding terrain and obstacles.

With autoland though, it's not just a simple button push. The aircraft needs to be descended around any terrain, navigated through any weather, and put into the landing configuration. If it'll be landing somewhere other than the planned destination, there's also a fair amount of reprogramming of the FMS.

> there's also a fair amount of reprogramming of the FMS

That was something I was missing. Probably complicated when you are scared to death. But still a CAT I glideslope descent/touchdown would be preferably to landing with the PAPI I think. (Funny detail, papi means daddy in Spanish!)

same for german, PAPI means daddy

The video is fun but he makes it far more complicated than it really needed to be. Additionally the only useful piece of advice is the headset/microphone/etc, after that ATC will tell the surrogate EXACTLY what they need to do, down to the switch and position.

This video would be better split into two: One where they have no ATC contact, and another where they do.

But I strongly agree, if you have ATC contact they're going to do an ILS landing, even if that requires sending you to a bigger airport that has ILS and better ground support.

You can only hope that ATC will find someone who can tell you exactly what do you … air traffic controllers are usually not pilots, i.e., they cannot help you with flying an aircraft …

Surely there will be a 737 pilot in the ATC frequency. Anywhere!

I'm 99.99% sure that's what most of the posters in this thread mean when they say ATC. "Ground" might be clearer but it is pretty obvious either way.

Tom Scott did an amusing if brief "How to land a plane in an emergency" video a little while ago that people might enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3R1ajg8dTY

Pretty cool.

What's the likelihood of this every happening to a member of the public these days? I presume that, in the eventuality of all pilots being out, there's a hierarchy of people who would then take over? I.e. if there are no pilots on board, the head of the cabin crew would perform this?

Would they even be able to enter the cockpit? IIRC since 9/11 the door to a cockpit is kept locked under almost[0] all circumstances[1]. I am not sure if this holds for all airlines though.

[0]: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/how-to-h...

[1]: http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-german-jet-crash-door-201...

The cabin crew can unlock the door if the pilots do not intentionally keep the door looked as the Germanwings suicide pilot did.

But that was exactly my point. That:

a) It appears to be standard procedure in the aftermath of 9/11 to keep the cabin doors locked at all times.

b) Many of the cases mentioned where this is useful are cases where the cabin crew are incapacitated due to, say, hypoxia or some other malady.

Given both of these I fail to see how this skill is as useful as others appear to be claiming it to be.

The purser doesn't get any special training, I don't know of any incident on a commercial scale in which the pilot and the copilot were incapacitated or dead and the crew had even time to react.

There were plenty of incidents with small aircraft especially training aircraft where a non pilot had to land it but I don't think anyone untrained was ever in a position to land something as big as 737.

From memory the closest event would be Helios Airways Flight 522 crash, where passage and crew were incapacitated by hypoxia. A flight attendant who was a certified commercial pilot (but without experience on a 737) managed to resist awake thanks to a portable oxygen supply and enter the cockpit.

He even waved at the chase F-16 next to him but one engine flamed out as soon as he entered and the plane started to descend, crashing just 15 min later.

Maybe if he had had more time (and oxygen) he could have managed to bring the aircraft to an airport, but we will never know.

I would imagine they have some sort of existing procedure for this. They could call over the PA and say that the pilot wants to know if there are any GA pilots on board or some other cover story first.

Edit: For what it's worth this was posted on some aviation-specific forums I follow and there are several inaccuracies in the video. It's the person is not a 737 pilot but they may be a commercial pilot certified for some other aircraft, or just someone with a lot of time on their hands.

One thing for sure is they won't use the pa as it will cause panic.

There might be some thing like with doctors where you can register and they'll know you are one but I'm not sure.

For the most part there inst a situation in which you going to have both pilots unavailable and the aircraft isn't going to be plummeting into the ground.

There's lots of youtube videos of actual landings from the cockpit view even. I like to watch them and when flying I like listening to the radio chatter also if available.

I thought modern airliners could pretty much fly themselves, or is takeoff and landing outside the scope of the automation?

A pilot licensed to fly smaller aircraft wasn't able to save this plane:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522

Well, he was fighting hypoxia and one engine flamed out as he entered the cabin, the other 10 min later. There's no way to know if he could have landed with ATC support if oxygen and fuel were nominal. A brave guy in any case.

Non-pilots think all the pilot training is learning to fly.

Pilots know flying is very easy, all the training is learning how to survive uncountable emergencies and failures. And economics and judgment and experience and doing it smoothly and a few other things.

Landing a large jet is very easy in a simulator. A random untrained person saving a plane that's out of fuel is impossible.

Exactly!

Black box data is retrieved analyzed and scenarios are prepared for pilots to train against.

I used to work in flight simulation and have flown a few different types. I designed the UI for the malfunctions/preselect system and while we had the head pilot trainer in to test the system one day we decided to mess with him.

We gave him a 35kt cross wind. Failed 2 out of 3 of the engines, as well as various hydraulics systems. Aside from the hilarity of watching the simulator engineer following orders to hand-crank the imaginary landing gear, the pilot made a near perfect landing without breaking a sweat.

I've had enough times in sim cockpits to confidently say that I could land a commercial aircraft if necessary. I can also confidently say that it would take me a dozen attempts to make that landing without crashing. Let alone a clean almost textbook touch down.

It depends, professional pilots often botch landings and swear in the cockpit although these landings are still safe (enough) …

A landing attempt by a passenger as shown in the YouTube video would probably end with a crash since some manual flying is involved in the end. It is very unlikely that a passenger would getting the controls right at the first time and he (or she) would certainly not be able to perform a go-around.

Autoland would be more helpful. In the worst cased, an aircraft can land without flaps and without 'three greens' if the runway is long enough with a high probability of survival for the passengers. Speed control is of course important but the correct speeds for a zero-flap landing could be given from the ground via radio.

"They say a good landing is one where no one gets hurt, and a great landing is one where they can re-use the plane."

Hat-tip: Cabin Pressure, BBC R4

Unfortunately he didn't have a lot of time before the engines flamed out: At 11:49, flight attendant Andreas Prodromou entered the cockpit and sat down in the captain's seat, having remained conscious by using a portable oxygen supply. Prodromou held a UK Commercial Pilot License, but was not qualified to fly the Boeing 737. Crash investigators concluded that Prodromou's experience was insufficient for him to gain control of the aircraft under the circumstances. Prodromou waved at the F16s very briefly, but almost as soon as he entered the cockpit, the left engine flamed out due to fuel exhaustion, the plane left the holding pattern and started to descend. Ten minutes after the loss of power from the left engine, the right engine also flamed out, and just before 12:04 the aircraft crashed into hills near Grammatiko. There were no survivors.

Autolanding is possible (no autotaxi out of the runway yet, but in process). You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSNE3SmYA-8 Watch how the autopilot is only disconnected after touchdown and some rollout. However to my knowledge takeoff is outside of the automation scope for the moment, it is the most critical part.

Modern airliners have an auto throttle for takeoff, and the V speeds (which will be computed automatically based upon load and weather conditions) audibly tell you when to do important stuff. In simple terms to takeoff you just set the flaps and throttle, push a button, and pull up when told to do so. Once you are a few hundred feet in the air, the autopilot will take over and do the rest.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takeoff/Go-around_switch

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_speeds