Possibly in a hijack situation.
Really guys, read the thread linked by MsWhatsit earlier. We go into all kinds of crazy detail about what it would take.
Final answer: no way. Your best bet is the autopilot.
And we had a thread a few years ago about the water landing (ditching) vs landing gear up on an open field. There was some disagreement as I remember, but I came down firmly on the side of get that airplane over land no matter what. Your chances on the ground are much better than in the water.
The food poisoning question is new, though. Crew meals are provided by contractors who must pass strict standards. This has always (for me) ensured that the meals are good. I’ve been flying professionally for 17 years and I’ve never gotten sick from a crew meal, and I’ve only seen one pilot who felt bad but we couldn’t attribute it to the meal. Even with this record my airline has in our FOM (Flight Operations Manual) that when possible the pilots should wait 30 minutes between meals to ensure that no ill effects are observed. The meals also contain different items, so you would not encounter something like “Airplane” where everyone had the fish.
Other airlines might be different (different vendors, no meals provided, etc) so I can’t speak for everyone.
I’m guessing its frowned on now to go to flight school and not learn landings, but can you learn landing only anywhere?
There are some flying schools that offer “spouse lessons”. Basically they teach you enough to be able to land in case your pilot partner has a heart attack.
Our company has a rule that pilots must eat different food or eat at least 30 minutes apart.
To the OP. modern autopilots require very little action from the pilots. I have some friends who fly the Airbus A320, one of their joke gripes is that they have to push a button in order for the autopilot to commence a decent. Most similar aircraft don’t require this much exertion from the pilots ;).
Also, an autoland can physically be carried out at any ILS even if it is only a CAT I. A CAT I ILS is not approved for an autoland but the aeroplane doesn’t know that and will happily land itself. There have been cases in Australia (which has no autoland approved ILS’s) where unforecast fog has forced the pilots to conduct an autoland.
I’d say that if the aircraft is equipped with an autoland system and its destination has an ILS, then someone on the ground could coach a passenger enough to get a safe landing. That’s assuming the passenger can figure out how to use the radio.
On the other hand, if the passenger had to hand fly the landing, well, I’d rather not be on that plane.
The more experience the passenger has with flying, the better.
One more thing, almost everyone who has landed a simulator or aeroplane under the guidance of an instructor has had the benefit of having the instructor in the cockpit with them. The instructor can see exactly what’s happening, and knows instinctively what to do about it. Someone sitting on the ground watching can’t see trends beginning, they can’t see decaying airspeed, or a gradual loss of attitude or whether their student is actually doing what they’re telling them to. This makes a huge difference IMO.
There has been at least (and probably exactly) one such: JA8032 landed in San Francisco Bay 2½ miles short of SFO. No deaths and no injuries. They basically deployed the rafts and paddled a few yards to the shore. The water was only about fifteen feet deep so the plane was in no danger of sinking. I would imagine the landing gear was ripped off so she was on her belly, but in any event, she was still up about two days later when she was recovered.
I keep seeing references to “someone on the ground.” The only folks “readily” available to chat with from a flight deck would be an air traffic controller. No one in an air traffic control facility is going to be able to talk someone down, knowing what buttons to press, when to press them, and where they are.
The other option is getting a hold of someone on a company radio to talk to, but I don’t know how you would go about getting a hold of them. I do know flight crews talk with company maintenance folks in flight. In fact, there’s a great audio file floating around from the Jet Blue who landed at LAX with a nose gear disagreement doing just that. What frequencies to dial, or even how to operate the radio on a Boeing or Airbus product, I think might be beyond the grasp of someone with zero flight experience. No radio, no help.
Getting back to small planes…
I remember this being on the news in the Peoria area, about 25 years ago. A guy was flying in a Cessna with his non-pilot wife, and he fell unconscious (I think from a heart attack). His wife managed to keep the plane level, and called for help on the radio. Another pilot who was flying in the area (who happened to be a flight instructor) responded and was able to help her down. He was able to meet up with her plane, and then flew along side her, giving instructions all the way down to an airport. She successfully landed on the runway, while he landed on the grass strip next to it.
According to the NTSB report though the landing gear doors were ripped off, the landing gear themselves were intact and resting on the bottom of the bay. The airplane didn’t sink because it the water wasn’t deep enough, only about 10 feet deep where it came to a stop. Some of the passengers didn’t even realize the landing was abnormal until they looked out their windows and saw the plane sitting in water.
If you have read Fate Is The Hunter By Earnest K Gann, you know where the fish and fowl meals thing came from.
If you have not and like airplanes, hie thee to the nearest Library… I knew pilots who actually knew and flew with E.K. Gann.
Fate is the Hunter
The High and the Mighty
The flying Circus
These are not the movies, but the books…
IIRC, the “99’s” still teach the ‘Pinch Hitter’ course to spouses of pilots. My Mom’s first lesson was that. She later became a pilot herself but she started that way.
Google “Earnest K. Gann”
It is worth pointing out that a typical WW2 heavy bomber, say, a B-17G Flying Fortress, isn’t really all that big by modern standards. Hella bigger than a Cessna, but not anything close to even a smaller modern airliner like a Boeing 737. They also flew much slower than a modern swept-wing jet plane.
Incidentally, I think it is entertaining that I find this thread after I was late for work this morning because I was watching the dogfight scene in Air Force One where Harrison Ford has to horse a 747 around while being chased by MiGs. 
I read somewhere that the air force won’t let it’s pilots fly real jets for a few days after using flight simulators, because there is enough of a difference that if you got too used to the similator, then you could screw up the real thing.
The major problem, of course, is the magnitute of the down side to tiny errors.
It would be interested to hear what a pilot has to say about that.
They can talk to other pilots in other airplanes, too. It is conceivable that should such a situation arise the poor civilian stuck in the cockpit might have the assistance of another pilot (probably while the other pilot in his/her airplane is flying) familar with the sort of airplane that’s in trouble.
Absolute nonsense. The fidelity of flight simulators today is such that checkrides and landing currency can be accomplished in them. The older simulators are not as good, but there has never been any policy like what you describe - at least not while I was on active duty, which began in 1990.
Agreed. I haven’t had anything to do with military simulators, but civilian ones are so real it’s unreal. There is no longer any requirement to fly a real aeroplane when you get checked out on one!
The AOPA Pinch-Hitter course is even available online, for frequent lightplane passengers who worry about such problems.
Earlier this year, a Continental 757 landed with a private pilot in the right seat, with the FO moved to the left after the captain had a massive coronary. Doesn’t really count in this thread, I know, except to prove that a PPL is enough to be able to work the radios and be the Gear Bitch. Beyond that, don’t bet on it - timing the flare by sight picture is hard enough to get consistent with just going from one lightplane to another, much less to one landing at twice the speed from a much higher seat position relative to the ground. Even for the 757 mentioned, keeping a common type rating with the 767 required making the cockpit a step up from the main deck, and a step down on the 767, with all the complexity that involved, simply so the pilots’ sight picture would be the same.
Better have the fire trucks ready and waiting if I’m flying, knowhamean?