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Comment by jamesaguilar | Hacker News Reader

I have a friend who is a small-plane pilot -- think Cessenas, things like that. I asked her, "Would you be able to land a 747 if the pilot died and the copilot was incapacitated or something crazy happened?" She said, "I think so. Get on the radio and ask tower where the autopilot switch is. They can land themselves."

Of course this was not in the spirit of the question but I thought it was an entertaining answer.

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ILS is amazing, it can really land by itself depending on the condition.

Indeed. It also has an interesting and hilarous history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Beams

"The Battle of the Beams was a period early in the Second World War when bombers of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) used a number of increasingly accurate systems of radio navigation, developed by Johannes Plendl, for night bombing in England. British "scientific intelligence" at the Air Ministry fought back with a variety of their own increasingly effective means, involving jamming and distortion of the radio waves."

"Thus the beam was "bent" away from the target. Eventually, the beams could be bent by a controlled amount which enabled the British to fool the Germans into dropping their bombs where they wanted them. A side effect was that as the German crews had been trained to navigate solely by the beams, many crews failed to find either the true equi-signal or Germany again. Some bombers even landed at RAF bases, believing they were back in Germany."

Honestly, this is what I expected the article to be: "Step 1: Turn on ILS. Step 2: Have a beverage and flip the fasten seatbelts sign on-- here's where it is on the instrument panel."

Assuming you somehow learned that they actually died... and you didn't die for the same reason... and you could open the cabin door...

And that whatever killed them did not damage the radio and/or auto pilot.

What made your friend think that air traffic controllers would be able to give instructions on how to land an aircraft?

(As a rule of thumb, they don't. And even most pilots couldn't help, only pilots who know the aircraft in question and if auto land is an option at all.)

You can keep a plane flying straight and level while they go and find out. They know that there's a plane in distress and can route traffic around it, and get someone on the horn.

It's still the right thing to do to contact them and ask for advice, they have emergency services to arrange, traffic to clear, and many have flight experience of some kind or another. More to the point they are at the twitching heart of the airport and can get on the phone or handball the task of patching through to a pilot that does have the relevant experience.

Even small airports have a surprising breadth and depth of experience hanging about the associated flight schools and maintenance sheds, the chances of finding a semi retired 747 (say) pilot lurking about with the older mechanics working on a light aircraft or custom built car are surprisingly high.

Specified "747" in the original question, and in my comment. I'm sure ATC could come up with someone who knew how to fly one.

They will however be able to call Boeing/Airbus/whatever and get them to talk you through it.

Sure, it would be unusual for a random individual controller to be able to give instruction on landing a 747.

But I can guarantee you that they would arrange for someone who did to help you. For immediate help, there would likely be another pilot in the sector that that controller could ask to help keep you in the air. While that is happening, other controllers or supervisors would be calling the airline to get a type-certified pilot/instructor on the radio to talk you through the landing.

I don't know of any cases where it has actually happened on a commercial, but there have definitely been cases in light aircraft where the pilot became incapacitated and ATC talked the non-pilot through a safe landing.

An ATC will be able to help by quickly getting someone who can help on the phone or in the tower. Finding someone with knowledge of the particular aircraft in question is seldom a problem, especially not at an airport.

Your very optimistic. There's no standard procedure for this kind of emergency. Sure, ATC will try to get help, however, depending on the type of aircraft, it might not be possible to fetch a pilot or another expert to due a talk down on time. For a common aircraft type it might be possible, for others, well …

Manufacturers of large airplanes maintain emergency contact numbers that you can call when one of theirs is in trouble and you need their help. Typically, calls involve things like: "I'm looking at the plane on the ground, x looks like it has broken off, what do I do?" instead of asking for instructions to land the plane, but I can assure you that they can give that kind of advice on short notice too.

> "I'm looking at the plane on the ground, x looks like it has broken off, what do I do?"

Having sat in an airplane seat for two hours while this exact thing happened, I sure hope their response times are faster if the question is "The pilots are dead, how do we land the plane?"

You're most likely to encounter a common aircraft type. Airline sompanies have reserve pilots that they can call on short notice, so it's highly unlikely that ATC will be unable to find someone to help. If you're in a small plane, there are many flying clubs they can call. All of this in the case that there are no pilots available on the current airport.

See this video for an example of an SEP pilot landing a King Air:

http://flash.aopa.org/asf/pilotstories/pinchhittingkingair/

I haven't read the manual for the 747, but I'm fairly certain that autoland is not done by flipping a single switch.

I'm sorry that she didn't say, "Ask for the process for configuring and engaging the autopilot," when she told the story. She probably thought, "Flip the switch" was sufficiently descriptive that I connect the dots myself. I guess she didn't expect to have the story picked apart by people looking for something to argue with.

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