The movie “Airplane!” was on cable tonight, and it had me wondering: Has there ever actually been a case where all the pilots on a commercial airplane were incapacitated, so that the flight attendant had to ask the passengers whether there was someone who could fly a plane?
And if a situation like that really did occur, what would be the standard way of dealing with such an emergency?
[WORST (non)CITE EVER]
There is a book of old pilot jokes and anecdotes that I read, and one apparently true story featured a rugby team aboard a (possibly small charter) plane.
The air hostess rushed out, and said the pilot had suffered a heart attack etc, and there was no co pilot on the plane - did anyone know how to fly?
Some old man among the passengers stepped forward, saying he used to fly bombers in the war. He took the controls. Doubtless they kept him miked up to the intercom, so the rugby players could hear what was going on in the cockpit.
The old boy virtually took the plane through an aerobatics session, plunging and diving and swerving it around, loudly complaining that the control stick “worked much differently” in his day. Cue these big, supposedly brave rugby men literally shitting themselves and weeping and anticipating a crash landing.
Of course it turned out that the old boy was actually the co-pilot in disguise, and the whole think was a prank.
It’s probably bollox, and it’s probably on Snopes.
[/WORST (non)CITE EVER]
As far as I understand it, commercial passengers planes today HAVE to have a pilot and a co-pilot.
Yeah, but that doesn’t get to the root of the question. What if the pilot, first officer, and flight engineer (if there is one) get jacked up somehow?
And furthermore, if it does happen with me on the plane and I have a camera, will a woman shake her jugs for me like in Airplane!? 
Although there have been numerous instances of passengers having to take over for an incapcitated pilot on a small plane and successfully landing (in the sense everyone survived and/or walked away - it isn’t unusual for the airplane to get damaged), to the best of my knowledge there has never been an instance of a passenger taking over on a commercial airliner.
There’s probably several reasons for this.[list=1]
[li]Commercial airliners carry more than one pilot, in part so that if one does become incapacitated you don’t face that problem, and additional precautions like the two (or more) pilots not eating the same meal (just in case the chicken salad went bad) are taken.[/li]
[li]Airline pilots must undergo a pretty comprehensive physical every six months, which means as a whole they tend to be healthier than the passengers. There have been instances of sudden illness or death in a pilot while on duty but it’s extremely rare, much rarer than in the general population.[/li]
[li]It’s pretty darn rare there’s a serious problem of any sort on an airliner. When it happens you hear about it thanks to the media, but really, on average it IS the safest form of transportation ever devised.[/li]
[li]Anything that’s going to be drastic enough to take out all the pilots at once is likely to take out the passengers, too. The Payne Stewart jet, for instance, depressurized and incapacitated everyone, not just the guys up front. So whether a passenger could have taken over at that point was moot.[/li][/list=1]It is possible that a passenger tried to take over on Flight 93 on September 11, but we’ll never know for sure.
I don’t think there’s a standard way of handling that specifically on an airliner. In a small plane the standard procedure, assuming the passenger is calm enough to be coherent and is able to use the radio to communicate, is to “talk them down”. Someone on the ground would briefly tell them what they need to know to direct the airplane, perhaps have them fly straight and level then do a few gentle turns to get their confidence up, then take them step by step through getting the airplane down. Most small planes have very similar procedures for doing this, and they tend to be forgiving of less-than-perfect performance. Passenger jets, however, are much much more complicated, require a higher level of skill, and slightly different skills to land safely. And they are less inclined to forgive an inept pilot.
However, if events conspired to put a passenger at the controls of a big jet, presumably they’d attempt the same - someone on the ground famillar with that type of jet would attempt to take the person step by step through the landing procedure. Like, there’s an alternative?
Would it make a difference if the hypothetical passenger was a small plane pilot? Tests on simulators of this very suggestion have demonstrated that a piston-engine airplane pilot tend to do no better than Joe Non-Pilot in such circumstances. This was sort of surprising to all concerned, but apparently there is sufficient difference between small planes and really big people-haulers that knowing how to safely fly a piston single or twin is not going to help you much, if at all. Might make it easier for you to find the radio and use it.
This sceanario was used in the movie Executive Decision, Kurt Russell, who plays the lead, happens to be a small plane pilot of considerable experience and actually paid for some jet simulator time to see if he actually would be able to handle it. He couldn’t. Crashed every time.
On the other hand, if you really DID find yourself in such a situation you’d be very highly motivated to make it work, and that might give you an edge you wouldn’t have in a simulator where you know, no matter what, you aren’t really going to die.
It’s not a case where the crew were incapacitated, nor was assistance requested from the passengers, but at least one famous airliner emergency involved a trained passenger taking over much of the (limited remaining) control over the plane: Dennis Fitch during the DC-10 crash at Sioux City, Iowa in 1989.
I don’t know of a case of the crew being knocked out, but there was a case of them needing an extra person.
Does anyone remember the (United Airlines, IIRC) accident back in the early 90’s where an explosion in the rear engine took out the hydraulics for the whole plane? They were able to steer (barely) by adjsuting the power to each engine, and crash-landed at the Sioux Falls (I believe) airport with more than half the passengers surviving.
Anyway, there was another pilot flying on the plane as a passenger, and he went up to the cockpit to assist the crew. The crew who survived said afterwards that without the extra set of hands, they probably never would have made it to an airfield.
And Bonzer beats me to it! Faster, more accurate, and with a link, even.
Ah, but that was a passenger who was also a pilot who happened to be trained in DC-10 operations!
Most people don’t have that background.
Yes, if your hypothetical passenger was a pilot trained to fly the big jets, yes, he probably could take over and get it on the ground. Since off-duty airline crew do ride in the back with the other passengers that could well be a possibility. I don’t know how much difference there is between the various types of big jets (Boeings models, Airbus, etc.) or how easily one can switch from one to another, though.
Then again, in such a situation you’re not looking for elegance, you’re looking for survival.
And you think the hypothetical hostess requesting help in the OP is going to refuse his assistance because of this? 
Karen Black did a good job in Airport 75.
FYI The Discovery Wings Channel is now showing a new series Learning to Fly featuring a student learning to fly a small plane from scratch. I have found the series very interesting in that flying is a lot more involved than most people believe.
One thing I learned, before starting out you drain some of the fuel into a “beaker” and check for air bubbles.
Actually, it’s water bubbles you’re looking for - it’s only resembles air. And grit. Grit in the fuel is very bad.
Yes, earning a license gets into some complex stuff - but that’s not quite the same as the essentials of how flight works, or how to get the plane to go the direction you point the nose.
Many flight schools offer classes in things called “pinch-hitter” and “right-seat pilot” for those who spend much time in small planes as passengers, but for whatever reason either don’t want or can’t obtain a license. It teaches you what you need to know to either help in an emergency, or deal with it yourself, including how to land the airplane. Most such students learn to control and land the plane in 2-4 hours of actually being at the controls.
Such a course only focuses on the absolute essentials - how to call for help, very basic “how things work”, not pretty landings but survivable landings. Usually about 8 hours total or less between the classroom and the flying, and the students actually do get to manipulate the controls of an airplane for a little real experience. (Actually, some of the landings these people achieve with minimal training are quite acceptable)
Most, of course, never actually need the training. Even so, they come away with a much better understanding of what’s going on, and enough knowledge to assist the pilot. Since things can get quite busy near big airports, or even on just a really nice sunny day, its very helpful to have someone sitting next to you who can look for traffic properly, or look up a radio frequency, or whatever.
What we really need for this discussion is someone like pilot141 who actually flies the big iron.
There were numerous cases on WWII of untrained (in piloting, at least) crewmen like gunners or navigators successfully flying bombers back to their home bases. It’s not exactly on point, but a violent act of some kind is about all that could reasonably take out both normal pilots at once.
Only half-way through my first dose of caffeine, but…
Broomstick is correct that GA pilots do not do well when called to take over the controls of a heavy. Flying had an article on the subject within the last couple of years. They put GA pilots into a simulator to find out if they could handle a jet in an emergency situation. IIRC, they crashed a lot.
On the other hand, pilots tend to have fairly well-developed egos. I’m sure that despite the evidence many think they can bring the jet to a safe landing.
I remember my introductory lesson in helicopters. (If you’re at all interested, you should be able to find a school in your local area that has an introductory lesson consisting of a half-hour of ground instruction and a half-hour in the air for about $100. I urge people to try it.) The instructor told me to take the cyclic and make a left turn. Okay, how do you do that? Left-rudder, left aileron, and some back-pressure on the stick to maintain altitude… right? I mean, that’s how you do it in an airplane! Nope. Helicopters don’t fly like that. The pedals are there for anti-torque. Altitude is maintained by applying a little up-collective. The only thing I got right was left-cyclic… and that’s where I found out that control inputs in a helicopter are much lighter than in an airplane. Very quickly I discovered that flying a helicopter is a bit like a video game. Just point the cyclic where you want to go. (There’s more to it than that, of course; but it works for the first lesson.)
Later on in my training I mystified my instructor by making good take-offs, good patterns, good finals and good flares, but consistently failing to make a good landing. “Forward stick! Forward stick!” It finally dawned on me that I made full-stall landings in the Cessna – Get over the numbers and flareflareflare until the airplane runs out of lift and altitude at the same time. In a helicopter you need to get the skids level. No “full stall” landings. Once I realized what I was subconsciously doing, my landings were great. I told my instructor later, and maybe he learned to look for that sort of thing.
What does this have to do with landing a jet? It’s to point out that different aircraft are different. And yet, people learn to fly them. I learned quickly how to fly a helicopter in cruise. I eventually figured out how to land one. My Pilot Ego™ says that if I had to take the controls of an undamaged, completely healthy airliner, I would be able to point it in the right direction. I would now that I’m sitting much higher than in a Cessna or a Robinson, so I would hit the ground before I think I should and I would compensate for it. I’d know that turbines are not as responsive as piston engines and I’d have to plan ahead. I know how airplanes fly, and that the same forces affect a Cessna and a Boeing in the same way. I will have contacted someone on the ground who could guide me and tell me the stall speeds, gear- and flap-extension speeds, etc. I’d have a VASI to look at. My Pilot Ego™ says I could pull it off and be a hero.
But in reality, and as has been shown in the tests that Flying wrote about, I’d almost certainly crash.
One can only hope that the crash would be less spectacular that it would otherwise be, and maybe someone would come out of it with a whole skin.
/Slight Hi-Jack/
I saw a Tv program on the Boeing 777 and I seem to recall a Boeing engineer saying that the plane could land and take off on automatic pilot.
Is this true?
/continue slight HJ/
Various current airliners are capable of auto-land – but IIRC it requires the right set of ground transmitters to guide you in and someone who knows what he’s doing inputting the right initial settings into the system. And pray for no sudden wind gusts.
I remember the article Johnny is talking about. As I remember it, they used GA pilots who had instrument ratings, meaning they were fairly experienced and knowledgeable.
Pre-Sept 11 I rode jumpseat in a 747 to London, and asked the pilots how I might do if I had to take the controls (I hold a Commercial ticket with instrument rating, have some multi-training, but don’t know anything about jets).
The captain said I would likely destroy the plane as soon as I attempted to do anything manually.
Now I’m wondering about this scenario: Say the pilots are incapacitated and I end up in the left seat. The plane is on auto pilot, and I’m able to figure out how to use the radio. I call a mayday and get a controller who calls in the emergency guys.
Could they have me set up the plane for a successful Category III approach? I’m assuming the plane has that equipment and that we have enough fuel to make it to an airport also equipped for it. A Cat III approach is full auto-land. Technically it’s classified as an instrument approach with no minimums.
I’m pretty good with computers, and work well under pressure…
What say you?
I’d say if you have no other choice - i.e. all jet-qualified pilots are dead or completely incapacitated - go ahead and try. At that point, what do you have to lose?
IF you could get a Cat III approach set up and IF nothing else went wrong that would be your best bet.
Please note those are big “if’s”
before we attempt to land, we have to call for help and instructions. what button or switch would we use?
Dial in 121.5 on the (active) radio. Put on the headset. Use the PTT switch on the yoke.
Yeah, because the authorities won’t release the transcripts of the black box recordings.