In my opinion, an attempt by anyone to land, is better than a dive into the ground.
Remember that plane that lost all hydrolics and ‘landed’ at an Iowa airport 9 years or so ago. It cartwheeled. But had many survivors.
I think it would be likely that there would be at least one or two (or perhaps ten) pilots on a big plane. Not big iron pilots, but better than nothing.
That was Flight 232.
I saw a special about it last week on Dateline(?). What a freaking horror show that must have been for the passengers.
Not just that. When the survivors were wandering around the cornfield, He Who Walks Behind the Rows got some of 'em.
The guys on UAL flight 232 did an AMAZING job of bringing that thing down. The only reason that anyone survived was because of the experience and outstanding flying skill of the crew. If you had put Joe Private Pilot in the seat, the result would have been a fireball with no survivors. Heck, if you had put a UAL pilot who had never flown the DC-10 in the seat you’d probably end up with no survivors. Getting that airplane into anything resembling a landing using ONLY differential thrust was a spectacular feat. It had never been done before - in fact the manufacturer said that the problem they had (complete loss of hydraulics) could never happen.
I’m trying to come up with an analogy for what these guys did. Imagine if you go in for an appendectomy, and as just as your doctor puts on his mask someone comes up to him and says: “Sorry, but something has gone wrong. For this operation you will have the use of one nurse, this flashlight and this pair of dull scissors. Good luck.”
Uncharted territory indeed. And also not representative of anything, including the likelihood of a passenger landing a normally controllable airliner.
As I stated before, in the OP’s case someone familiar with radios and ATC terminology would be a big help in getting a normally functioning airliner down safely. But your biggest friend and chance of survival lies with the autopilot.
Here’s another thread which covers the same territory:
As the other airline pilot here, I agree with Pilot141’s first post.
Non-pilot passengers will have essentially zero success flying by hand, and maybe a 1-in-20 chance of a few survivors using the autopilot.
Lightplane pilots will have a tiny chance by hand, and probably 1 in 10 of arriving alive & intact.
For either sort of would-be pilot success or failure depends very critically on the first few seconds where control is transferring from the bad guys to the newbie.
Also, don’t underestimate the psychological challenge of jumping into the seat just after having beaten off the bad guys. Staying cool is going to be a real challenge; real life isn’t like the movies. You need to start doing the right things right now, while havingl ittle or no clue what those right things are.
Let me try that again with the rest of the post included …
Here’s another thread which covers the same territory (while also digressing into a discussion of whether Fligth 93 was shot down):
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...ad.php?t=247324
As the other airline pilot here, I agree with Pilot141’s first post.
Non-pilot passengers will have essentially zero success flying by hand, and maybe a 1-in-20 chance of a few survivors using the autopilot / autoland.
Lightplane pilots will have a tiny chance by hand, and probably 1 in 10 of arriving alive & intact if they use the autopilot / autoland.
For either sort of would-be pilot success or failure depends very critically on the first few seconds where control is transferring from the bad guys to the newbie. If the flight situation is stable & the autopilot is already on, they’ve got a chance. If not, the game’s probably over in the next minute, i.e. before it really begins.
Also, don’t underestimate the psychological challenge of jumping into the seat just after having beaten off the bad guys. Staying cool is going to be a real challenge; real life isn’t like the movies. You need to start doing the right things right now, while havingl ittle or no clue what those right things are. And unlike the movies, you haven’t already read the script.
But, as others have said, give it a whirl. What have you got to lose at that point?
Finally, as enipla suggested, on airliners bigger than RJs you’ve probably got a 50% or better chance there’s at least one airline or bizjet pilot riding in the back. In a hijack situation the bad guys may have already taken him/her out if they were in uniform, but it’s a place to start.
Actually, assuming there’s no pilot in an obvious uniform available, how will the passengers decide who’s gonna fly now? I can imagine a terrified horde, where half are frozen into immobility and the other half are desperately trying to do something, anything, to save their butt. In the ensuing melee, the cool calm one who’s most likely to succeed at flying is probably not the winner.
If folks were able to plot their plan carefully before storming the cockpit, the odds improve dramatically, if for no other reason than the mad fight for control of the assault will happen in hushed tones in the back, rather than in real time at the cockpit door.
But that’d require that the bad guys all went to the cockpit without leaving guards back in th cabin. And that’s against bad guy SOP.
Never underestimate the power of very scared people to really lose their minds, at least temporarily. Panic is very contagious, as is mob behavior.
Sorry for my ignorance … what does this sentence mean? 
Ditto with a pilot who HAD flown a DC-10 … from the link:
“Subsequent simulator tests showed that other DC-10 crews were unable to repeat the effort of the crew of 232. Investigators concluded that, in its damaged condition, it was not possible to land the aircraft on a runway.”
What those pilots did was astounding.
So it sounds like the best chance is to get someone on the ground to talk the passanger through the autoland system.
Are there any other options? Do that bit in James Bond where a pilot is winched across from another plane? Is there anywhere better to land than a normal runway? Are there a couple of parachutes stashed somewhere just in case there’s a rare situation where they’d be useful? Refuel in the air for the rest of your life?
[Point of information]
Philosphr, a “Super 80” is a McDonnell-Douglas MD80, not a Boeing 727.
The first has 2 engines, the latter three.
[/POI]
As I probably said in the linked threads, this question comes up every so often in the flight sim forums. The general consensus there is, “no,” but there’s always a few desk jockeys who come in and bravely assert that since they can “hand-fly” anything on the computer, they’d be able to hand the real big iron. Usually the real pilots tell them they’re full of it.
Shade. to my (albeit limited) knowledge, there are no parachutes on commercial planes, nor do any of them have in-flight refuelling capability. In lieu of a hard surface runway, one could try to ditch in the water, but I think that’s even harder to accomplish safely than on a runway.
Yes, your best chance is the autopilot (and autoland system).
The “winched across from another plane” refers to one of the Airport movies, I think. IIRC Chuck Heston was tethered behind a helicopter and managed to get into the cockpit of a 747 that had hit a Cessna (and luckily had a person-sized hole in the cockpit area).
In real life, no. The movie was…well, a movie. Highly unrealistic in the first place. For this to work, you have to have a hole that someone can be dropped into. Unless your aircraft hit something, this will not be there. Second, you now have to have Unqualified Passenger #1 fly the airplane steadily enough for a helo to join in formation and tether someone down. Hell, if UP #1 can do that, just let him land the damn thing! Seriously, formation flying is one of the most demanding things you can do with an airplane. It requires constant minute adjustments to the throttles and flight controls. The autopilot is too slow to do this (unless you are using one of the high-speed C-17 rigs that are designed to do it). So bottom line: Nope, never gonna happen.
As to where to land: runways are your best shot. Not only because of the long patches of smooth concrete and lack of obstacles, but because airfields house your best friends: airport firefighters. These dedicated individuals spend their whole life practicing for the one time you come barreling into their area. One of the success stories of the UAL 232 flight is that the Sioux City Airport had just recently practiced for a large airliner crash. Their preparedness saved many lives.
As for parachutes, do a search on the Dope. There have been many threads, some of which I’ve posted to. Bottom line: no way.
As to refueling: Ha! Good luck. Civilian airliners are not equipped to refuel in the air. What you’ve got on board is what you’ve got, period. And to expound, even if you could refuel that doesn’t mean it would happen. Receiving gas while airborne is an extremely difficult task. The larger the jet, the more stressful it becomes. It was difficult enough that people in my C-141 squadron could not get the qualification. It was only two pilots out of 30, but still…if qualified C-141 pilots cannot get gas from a tanker, there is no way that someone who has never flown the airplane can get gas.
And now I switch from the practical to the philosophical…
I think the problem here is that most people don’t want to “trust” an airplane getting them down safely when all hell breaks loose.
As I’ve said before, the airplane and it’s autopilot are your best friends. It’s an emergency situation. ANY amount of automation from the airplane is better than a nervous, inexperienced person at the controls. The autopilot doesn’t have nerves; it doesn’t feel pressure; it can’t hear people yelling from the back; and it does EXACTLY what you tell it to do. Every single time.
This just occured to me, so I’ll say it now: airliner autopilots do NOT, repeat NOT run on Windows!!! The systems are designed and built for one thing: reliability, and then there are backups installed. There is no such thing as a Blue Screen of Death in an airplane. Period.
So when you find yourself voted into the left seat of an airliner, make sure you do three things:
Relax. Seriously. Take a deep breath, get your wits about you and make sure nothing dangerous is happening (flight-wise). As long as the airplane is wings-level and not diving or climbing, you are good. If something crazy is happening, then fix it fast as best you know how. This is where any type of pilot (ie unusual attitude) training might help. Get the shiny side up, set power so you won’t stall, and then…
Start talking on the radio. Find anything that looks like a microphone. You know those things that cops talk into when they give you a speeding ticket? Find something that looks like that and use that thing! Do NOT use the thing that looks like a telephone - that will get you the flight attendants in back.
Once the ATC folks know what has happened you will get very specific directions on what to do, including which airport they are vectoring you to. If you say “I know that I want to set this airplane up for an autoland” you will get a standing ovation from the ATC guys.
Are you saying there are specific trainings the ATC guys go through to deal with this very problem? And, has it ever happened?
First, let me say that this question means no disrespect to any of the commercial airline pilots here. It seems from this thread that if told where to go, the planes equipped with autopilot can basically do everything, including land the plane, without assistance. If this is true, then my basic question is why are the pilots so necessary? In particular, why are they able to command very high salaries if their job could be done without them? Maybe this is not a true statement, but it is my impression from this thread.
I understand that people would not be comfortable flying in a plane that is computer controlled, and there is definately a psychological aspect here. For this reason alone I know my question isn’t really a practical one for today. But, it just seems that after pilot141 has assured us of the reliability of the autopilot, then having not just one but two pilots on board seems like a lot of supply for little demand. Are pilot salaries expected to fall as the underlying technology continues to improves?
Again, no disrespect intended to our pilots. Please fight my ignorance!
To Phlosphr:
What I’m saying is that by saying that, the ATC folks will know that YOU know what you are talking about, and you have just made their job about a thousand times easier.
Talking someone through using an autopilot is fairly easy…talking someone through a hand-flown landing is nearly impossible. By telling them that you know what you need to do, you eliminate the entire “convince me about this” discussion that would normally ensue when a passenger ended up in the front.
Imagine ten minutes wasted on “But that doesn’t make sense. Are you SURE the airplane can do that? Maybe I should just find a different person to sit up here…”
During those ten minutes the airplane is flying away from the airport and descending. If you say “set me up for an autoland” the controllers know that they are dealing with someone who knows the capabilities of the airplane, and they can focus on getting you down safely rather than convincing you that it’s possible to have the airplane get you down safely.
AFAIK this has never happened with a commercial airliner. The whole FAA medical checkup thing seems to be doing a good job of preventing both pilots from keeling over at once!
Upon preview:
crozell, good question and no offense taken!
The reason that I’m still needed is that flying is a very dynamic environment. Things change constantly. The flight plan that I load into my airplane on departure has about a 20% chance of surviving intact to the destination.
Decisions are made from the very beginning. Should we put on extra gas because of the weather en route? The flight attendants are complaining about someone who appears drunk. Do we boot them? (Yes). On takeoff, how close are those thunderstorms? Should we takeoff now or wait until they blow through? While cruising, which way should we deviate around that weather? Should we request a higher/lower altitude for a smoother ride? On arrival, our destination airport is socked in with a ton of airplanes in holding waiting to get in. How long do we wait before we divert? Can we change our divert airport to give us some extra holding time? On approach, when do the winds get too squirrely? When does the spacing just look wrong between us and the guy in front of us?
These are all decisions made on every flight. Now throw in something unexpected - a passenger has a heart attack in flight. Where do we go? How long will it take to get there? I sure don’t want my mother to be on a flight where the divert field was calcluated by revenue $/grid W minus computer fudge factor Q3. Add mechanical malfunctions (engine fires, loss of hydraulics like on UAL 232) and you quickly get away from what a machine can handle.
If you’ll notice in my first post in this thread, I said that the passenger + autopilot was a good way to survive, BUT if you had some sort of problem with the airplane then you were in trouble.
If you have any sort of weather problem you would be in trouble also. Place a raging thunderstorm over your destination, and watch the ATC folks scramble to find you a new place to land. Again, a human is involved and making decisions.
You can tell the airplane where to go, but it doesn’t know that going there involves flying through a thunderstorm, windshear or icing. It can tell you this when it encounters it (ie “Windshear!, Windshear!”) but it cannot AVOID it like you can.
This brings up the old flying adage: A superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid using his superior skills. In other words: stay out of trouble!
When I talked about Joe Passenger getting up front and hooking up the autopilot to save the day, I was assuming that everything worked as advertised. No bad weather, no bad aircraft systems, etc. Just a clear blue sky and a perfect aircraft.
I admit, on beautiful days with clear skies and not a lot of other traffic I feel like I am overpaid. But on a nasty night takeoff out of La Guardia with blowing snow, low ceilings, scratchy radios and turbulence up to 20,000 feet I think I am grossly underpaid. It all evens out, I guess. 
Reference to a Stephen King short story titled Children of the Corn.
I’ll show myself out, now.
I dunno… if it was me I would use the telephone to tell the flight attendants to keep my liquid courage coming and THEN I’d get on the radio.
Slight hijack (on an airline thread? Don’t everybody rush me at once!) … but I’ve always thought Flight 232’s story was about the most inspiring stories of grace under pressure and survival. The fact that the flight crew went from a boring cross-country flight to we-can’t-control-anything-but-one-of-the-engines and managed to make it to an airport is amazing. They had to figure out what controls still worked on the plane, and what didn’t work (which was just about everything) on the fly. And the whole time, the flight crew remained calm and professional, as did the people on the ground trying to bring them down.
Here’s a transcript of the cockpit voice recorder for flight 232. Amazing stuff.
Sioux City Approach: “United 232 heavy, the wind’s currently three six zero at one one three sixty at eleven. You’re cleared to land on any runway.”
Captain Al Haynes: (laughs) “Roger. You want to be particular and make it a runway, huh?”
EZ
The Captain of flight 232 (He survived) gives a lecture to flight students recalling all the events of the flight.
With all due respect to the pros here, I got to add something. As I mentioned before I got to fly a commercial flight simulator for a Dornier 328. The cockpit is an all glass cockpit just like a 777. Also they were careful to point out to me that anything that can be done in the real aircraft can be replicated in the simulator. As it was explained to me, this is a 12 million dollar video game.
When I made the 4th landing approach the IP put me in fog, and told me to fly the glass screen in front of me. I did this; it was no harder than doing the same thing on a Nintendo. I kept the wings level, and on the glide slope, and flew the plane all the way to the deck. The landing was butter smooth. Now I will admit that there was no cross wind, no rain, no turbulence, but flying the VDT was not that hard. As in all things YMMV!
If I were in that situation for real, you had better believe I would want the auto land to do the heavy work! No matter how good I think I am there is a huge difference between embarrassing myself in the sim, and having a couple of hundred lives (my own included!) on the line. Can you say stress? I would be screaming for the location of the auto land system!
Oh an Pilot 141 Every time my flight returns safely to earth, I think that the pilots deserve a raise. If the weather is crap, I think they deserve a BIG raise. 
OK I think I’m pretty cool now on what to do:
Get on the radio with a view to re-engaging autopilot. However I think we have to assume that the first thing the bad guys will do upon gaining control of the aircraft is disengage the autopilot (since they want to fly the plane towards their target).
So, after I have dispatched the bad guys to that great flight school in the sky and sat myself down in the hotseat, I presume that the plane will be gracefully arcing down towards the earth. This is the safest assumption.
How do I get the plane to re-ascend so that I get time to radio for help etc? Do I gently pull back on the steering wheel thingy while watching the altimeter? Do I push the big red button that says “Under No Circumstances Push This Button”? What?
I actually picture the scenario (assuming I’m present) as something like this:
The interior of the first class looks like a butcher shop - dead bodies, blood, gouged eyeballs, etc. The Big Tourist Guys who just beat the hijackers to death are arguing about who flies the airplane.
I stand up “Excuse me? I’m a pilot - I’ll take left seat up front”
These he-men, still riding on their adrenaline highs (and perhaps nursing some knife wounds), most young sorts, look down from their vantage of six feet and more of height at the mousy little woman pushing 40 with the thick glasses and…
laugh
“You don’t look like a pilot. Just sit down little lady, we’ll finish saving your life”.
“But - but - I really am a pilot!”
More laughter
Big guys enter cockpit, remove dead flight crew, proceed to attempt to hand fly the airplane, and crash.
In reality, of course, we would have the luxury to time to allow such lengthy conversation, nor do I expect the discourse to be anywhere near as congenial. Don’t think people react that way? Heck, I’ve gotten the “you-don’t-look-like-a-pilot-I-don’t-believe-you-can-fly” reaction plenty of times in the past - including from people who have actually seen me land an airplane. I’ve recounted some of these episodes in past threads.
See, that’s part of the problem - folks who read the Dope might well have the tools to just barely give them a hope of survival in such a situation - but most folks don’t read the Dope, have very mistaken notions about aviation, and frankly would be unaware of the apalling depths of their own ignorance in these matters.