Has Any Passenger Ever Landed a Commercial Airliner and How Likely is it You Could?

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god I'm getting shot this is this is a problem I done already shot short-range oh no I just launched it at the sky they don't have any short-range weapons is everyone hiding while we're all hiding over here is that the bad guy should I launch my look at this you ready for this oh I hope we don't a friendly fire because so yeah join us on the battlefield for free if you sign up using our link below you can get a starter set three extra weapons or a vehicle cabin just for registering it also helps support the show so that's awesome link below so in the video today we are to review a question because natter pixie asks us has a non pilot passenger ever managed to land an airplane a common Hollywood trope when dealing with commercial airline centric plotz's inevitably at some points the pilot or pilots will become incapacitated and the lead character who may or may not have any piloting experience will be forced to take over lest they die a fiery death when gravity decides to establish its dominance but has this scenario ever actually played out in real life and what is the likelihood a passenger with a limited - no formal pilot training could actually land a commercial airliner safely if they were being taught through it as is often depicted in the movies to begin with as to the first question when talking large commercial aircraft yes a passenger of sorts did once and only once take over for the incapacitated pilots this occurred aboard the Helios Airways flight 5 to 2 in 2005 so how did both pilots become incapacitated and what happened after in a nutshell the cabin pressurization switch was set to manual instead of automatic and the pilots who had over 20,000 hours of flight experience combined didn't realize there was an issue despite this being something that they should have noticed if they're dumb net checklists properly later the system alerted them to the pressurization issue as they climbed but the warnings were misinterpreted next the oxygen masks automatically deployed for passengers at around 18,000 feet something the pilots were seemingly unaware of this is curious as when the mask has deployed the passengers and the rest of the crew would have put theirs on when the crew observed the pilots still having the plane climb after this event instead of descending immediately noteworthy here is the passenger oxygen supplies last only 15 minutes or so they should have attempted to at least bang on the locked security door if the lead flight crew member who had the code to open it was incapacitated or otherwise unable to remember it to get in as to why they didn't do this or if they did and the pilots were simply too out of it for any banging to register this isn't known on that note at one point the grounds engineer who had switched the pressurization to manual during some maintenance before the flight asked the pilot when issues were reported if the pressurization setting was on auto the captain at this stage was already a little too far gone mentally from lack of oxygen and ignored the question given his radio communication stopped shortly thereafter when he simply commented about trying to locate some circuit breakers in response it is presumed he succumbed mere seconds after the question was asked had he registered the question and looked then simply turns the little knob or would have fixed itself in short order ultimately one of the flight attendants Andres Perdomo did take over flying the plane there was a problem though it would seem from the investigation that he had difficulty getting access to the cabin seemingly only doing so after a couple of hours of the plane flying itself into Plane full of passed out people which we imagine must have been incredibly terrifying for Primeau on many levels so how did it turn out tragically this ended with the plane crashing in all 121 people on board being killed but Romo was actually a pilot himself though as far as we could tell without any professional experience and certainly not in a Boeing 737 as to why he wasn't able to bring the plane back down he wasn't really given a fair chance in this case as it seems as if moments after he finally got into the cabin one of the engines ran out of fuel and then not long after the other died - even an extremely experienced pilot in that plane would have had low odds in this case unless in glide range of a suitable Airport and that's it in the over a century old history of commercial aviation that is the only time we could find that a passenger has had to take over completely in a large commercial airliner that said moving on to much smaller planes it turns out while rare this sort of thing has actually occurred many times even in some commercial scenarios perhaps the most notable case of this was when none other than mr. bean aka Rowan Atkinson chartered a flight for he his wife and two children in Kenya in 2001 the aircraft was a little succeed Cessna unfortunately for the Atkinson family at a certain point the pilot lost consciousness doing his best not to mimic his clumsy alter ego a concern took over flying the plane thankfully for him and his family they were eventually able to revive the pilot reportedly after a concern slapped him several times said pilots then landed the plane without incidents moving on from there perhaps our personal favourite case of a charter flight resulting in a passenger having to take over is the case of one Doug why is a bit of a legend as your PC if you go and listen to his conversation with air traffic control during the event which will link to below this video in this case a whited chart of the planes of transport himself his wife and two daughters he did have his private pilot's license but flying a small Cessna 172 many years before he didn't fly much after up until the weeks leading up to the event itself when he decided to take the hobby back up unfortunately for him in this case rather than finding himself having to fly a nice little trainer plane like the Cessna 172 he was sitting in a twin-engine turboprop Beechcraft super king air which seats up to 10 people cruises at nearly 300 miles per hour and otherwise makes the Cessna 172 look like a child's toy so what happens well during the takeoff phase of the flight the pilot joke book randomly slumped over deads as white described I looked over and his chin was on his chest he may allowed a guttural sounds kind of a groan and his eyes rolled back and his hands never left his lap it was quick it was sudden and it was final luckily for the four other Souls aboard Quebec did engage the autopilot directly before his own soul left his body so there was time for an assessment of the situation knowing how to use the radio wide contacted air traffic control ATC and declared an emergency the go-to thing to do in such a scenario in a nutshell this basically means that from that point on you can more or less do whatever you want so your attempt to get safely back on the ground and ATC is at your beck and call to help in any way they can diverting any other planes as needed they'll also provide any information they can get in ground emergency personnel nearby when you're going to attempt to land and otherwise organizing help in any way possible though it is noteworthy here the most ATC personnel are not pilots themselves and so there is sometimes a delay getting anyone who actually knows how to fly a plane on the line on that note while the initial ATC contact where I found himself talking to wasn't terribly helpful they eventually got an ATC employee Lisa Grimm who was a pilot herself and would go on to be an absolute superstar during the event helping whites to get the aircraft under control and otherwise helping keeping calm later they were able to track down a king a pilot Carl Sorenson to help with the specifics on how to land the thing during the whole ordeal beyond having to figure out how to fly and land the plane white also had a bit of worried about the dead pilot potentially something over the controls at an inopportune moment bus efforts by he and his wife to remove said body from a pilot seat were unsuccessful so they simply cinched the seat belt as tight as they occurred and hoped that that would be good enough will spare you most of the details as they are best just gone and listen to mother than to mention our favorite part using the autopilot or you fly an airplane made a good Lord hands loveless classic Doug another great line during the final moments before touchdown 80-seat old white looks good from here good job remarkably with a lot of help from his angels on the ground wide was able to land the plane not only safely but in pilot speak he greased the landing meaning a twists a rather gentle and uneventful touchdown and pretty much right on the centerline to boot said the aforementioned Sorenson who was in the back telling ATC what to tell white I don't think you could have made the plane more complex or the pilot less experienced and have had a successful landing when all was said and done he was later interviewed about how he kept so calm during the ordeal with white simply saying in his thick drawl there were buzzards amber lights horns it was like a circus the only thing I was concentrating on was keeping the airspeed up in the wings at all you know just fly the plane you just focus your here and go into a zone there's no time to chitchat or lock up just get her done if you're gonna die at least die trying not to and we're pretty sure that that last line needs to go on a t-shirt fairly pronto moving on from there some people with zero flight experience who successfully got her done we have one Henry at George and halt who was aboard a small Piper Cherokee six as you might expect from that it's a six seater plane he was with his wife and three sons when the 36 year old pilot Christopher Pierce died the plane at the time was low on fuel but thankfully only about ten minutes from their destination of Winterhaven Airport in Florida shortly after the pilot slumped over and hold keyed the radio and asked for help said and Howell taught stake in the controls I kept my minds on flying the plane on a course for Winter Haven I started calling Mayday over and over and kept praying for Chris to revive we made it to the airport but we still hadn't heard from anybody I started circling Becky was hollering that I was going too steep so I made wider circles I tried switching to the full tank but the end would sputter and put it back on the nearly empty tank finally someone gets on the frequency and says I'm a date yes my pilot passed out I said wherever the winds are Haven Airport then another pilot came on and said we're close by we'll be over to help the person who answered the call was flight instructor Dan McCullough who was giving a flight lesson at the time after calming her heart down he gave him his first file erson and being a bit of a gentleman he didn't even charge him said McCullough later we flew down closer and got him lined up on a real good glide path to the runway you can get anybody over the numbers on the grounds but it's that last five feet that's tricky I asked him to fly around the airport a bit get more used to the aircraft the only real disadvantage I hads over any other time I've done it is I couldn't actually beam in the aircraft with him I just gave him directions how to get over the runway and then to cut the engine to keep them leveled that came in too steep had dive into the ground if he came in too far back at stall in the end dan Holt was able to get it down stating I had the flaps or whatever they're called up and I idle the speed down after that it happened real quick his wife added we bumped twice on the grounds and veered a few feet into the grass and if you're wondering as this is often asked in these situations at least in this case yes the flight instructor Dan McCullough was happy to endorse the flight and landing as an Hulk's first solo in a logbook if a not wants to get one moving on from there we have one of the more notable cases of a person with zero pilot experience flying in or one of the aforementioned Cessna 172s in 2013 the passenger then 77 year old John wall's he had been a member of the royal air force for 24 years but not as a pilot in shorts he and his friends he went unnamed in the reports were up flying around as they frequently did when his friend turned to him and said quote he said he was sick and asked me to take the aircraft controls he set the controls and put me on the right path then he was unwell again completely unresponsive I called his name but he didn't answer as flying such a plane in terms of keeping it straight and level isn't actually that terribly difficult in fact if the plane is properly trimmed as it apparently was it should mostly fly itself straight and level without touching the controls at all so there was no real immediate danger that seemed simply held things steady and being familiar with at least how to cue the radio he did say and if you're curious about this we have lots more about how to do that in the bonus facts later what while he also had going for him was that a plane like the Cessna 170 is built as a trainer plane and thus it's extremely forgiving of bad landings and it's relatively easy to fly but you do have to be able to get over the runway pretty close to the ground before powering back the engine and then as the plane sinks hold the nose off as best you can to land on the two rear wheels while trying to time it so you're extremely close to the ground when you reach the stall speed aka the speed at which the plane will stop flying and more or less forward with style in this case scenario helicopter was sent to guide Wildey to the airport and then in the meantime he was being talked through the whole thing by one rod Murray chief flight instructor at Frank Morgan flying school Waldie ended up making three attempts to land the plane and each time he failed in a good approach and was instructed to go for power climb back up and try again remarkably he executed reasonably good go arounds each time without crashing on the fourth attempt he committed and while it wasn't what anyone would call a pretty landing it was one in which not only he but the plane walked away mostly unscathed save apparently for some sparks at one points when he touched down Baldy would later describe I know you bring back the controls but I didn't bring them back hard enough so really I was sort of nosed down rather than anything else then we touched and there was a right bump two or three bumps I suppose it was a controlled crash really that's I just couldn't get the brakes because I couldn't reach them I managed to get them in the ends but then we sort of went off the runway and all I could see was this runway indicator wall coming towards me and I thought I'm not going to do it but managed to just stop in the end I'm a lucky bloke sadly his friend was later pronounced dead at the hospital and here's another case of someone with no experience a student pilot from Australia max Sylvester up on his first lesson in August of 2019 in a small two-seat cessna152 was about an hour into it when his instructor Robert mullet passed out and slumped over onto him in the cramped aircraft ultimately while being talked through it he successfully executed this first ever landing without incident and actually from his cockpit footage almost dead on centerline and reasonable gentle touchdown all things considered his instructor as far as we could find later recovered from whatever happened to him moving on from the sighted among us we have the case of a legally blind person managing to successfully land a plane it helps that he Charles law was a former pilot laws flying days had long since been over as at this point in his life he had 2200 vision in one eye and 2,400 in the other he was tasked with one more landing when his pilot friends an 80 year old Harris tutela passed out on approaching the runway said law as he came in for the landing all I could see were the airport thresholds white markings I understand for that we bounced a little hard and it was a little squirrelly and I guess I was a little crooked but I thought it was a very good landing unfortunately despite landing the plane almost immediately after Stella passed out medical personnel were never able to revive him on the other end of things there are many incidents where the passenger was unable to learn the plane and all aboard were killed but we're choosing to go ahead and omit any specific examples and snow but he wants to hear about that we mention it's however just say you don't get the false impression that this is somehow something that's super easy to do moving back to the big boy planes one of the reasons outside of one exception this just isn't a thing is because in many regions of the worlds it's usually required that there be two trained pilots boards in such airliners furthermore in most countries said pilots are subjected to extremely rigorous and regular medical check-ups far more so than the already reasonably strict requirements for non commercial pilots thus it's just not terribly likely that something would happen to take out of both pilots and leave some passengers still able to do anything in fact even when talking about just one pilot according to a study done by the Australian Transport Safety Board incidence of a pilot on commercial actor after becoming unable to continue with their duties only occurred in about one of every 34,000 flights while that might seem high to you in most of these cases there was nothing seriously wrong with the pilot in question for example a full half of these incidents were to put it bluntly diarrhoea related we're guessing if that was in the backup pilot said pilots in these incidents would choose to poop their pants rather than let the plane crash so what happens when one pilot is taken out more seriously in these scenarios while you and your thousand hours of flight training on Microsoft Flight Simulator might now be thinking well this is what I've trained for this is not actually what would likely occur in many cases the remaining pilots will simply request one of the crew come aboard and sit in the unoccupied seat perhaps reading through a checklist for them or if they have some experience doing a little more this is something we found a handful of otherwise uneventful cases in our searching with the passengers rarely ever informed there was an issue that said as stated by a former pilot at US Airways there are thousands of commercial certified pilots who do not fly for the airline so having a commercial pilot on board would not be that uncommon they can hand all the radios they understand the terminology they can help prepare the airplane for landing offloading responsibilities from the pilot on that notes we did find one instance steering a United Airlines flight when Air Force captain Mike Gong roll was requested to come help out when the captain of that flight had a heart attack in this case that flight attendants first requested that any doctor on board please make themselves known they later asked if any pilots aboard would push their call button to make themselves known a sequence of requests not exactly geared towards keeping the passengers worryfree as we're gonna go while he had never flown that particular aircraft a Boeing 737 his extensive flight experience including mainly flying a b-1b Lancer bomber at the time made him an ideal candidate to come help tick alert or workload off the first officer who was tasked with actually flying the plane in that instance he later stated she mostly just had him take over the radio communication which she was well skilled at we're saying actually become incapacitated dugong will probably had a high probability of being the first-ever passenger to successfully land a commercial airliner but of course said first officer had little trouble getting the plane down safely being extremely well trained but this all does make you wonder outside of our sample size of one where the circumstances were stacked against him in the more general case how likely is it that a random passenger could lambs a large commercial airplane if they were being taught through it first if literally zero experience flying a plane or using a really good flight simulator basically no chance the problem here is that you do need to actually know how to call someone for help on the radio and with the myriad of buttons and switches all over it's unlikely a random person could figure that out unless they keep watching this video and they get to the bonus facts section that said protip if you're under about 10,000 feet in a reasonably populated area your cell phone will probably work just fine and you can use that as a way to call for help and someone will probably tell you how to operate the radio of course and most commercial airliners don't spend much time under 10,000 feet so odds are you'll be much higher than that and if lower probably in a critical phase of flight meaning as no way you're going to get to the cockpit to help out in time anyway unless they've set the autopilot pretty quickly after takeoff and even then a noteworthy thing as tragically the aforementioned andreas prodrome Oh demonstrated is getting into the cockpit in today's large commercial aircrafts in flight as easier said than done if the pilots are both incapacitated and a crew member who knows the code isn't available so well good luck with that buts in this increasingly unlikely scenario if the autopilot was engaged giving you time to work with thence you get into the cockpit and figure out how to use the radio from there you might have a chance but not because you could actually land the plane the odds of that are basically zero if you have no flight experience and pretty slim if you do unless you have some training in that aircraft or something similar the reason you might actually have a fighting chance if you can establish communication with someone on the ground is that most large commercial planes are perfectly capable of landing themselves if you know how to set up the system and then help the system along appropriately on that note if you'd like to see a commercial pilot with a rather excellent youtube channel walk you through how to do this in a professional level simulator do go check out mentor pilots crash course on the topic titled how you can land a passenger airplane twelve steps and hey you could always use the airplane Wi-Fi to watch it in flight finally if you're now wondering if any small aircraft have a similar auto loan system it turns out some dude the best of which which is actually superior to the large plane auto land systems in some ways is Garmin's recently launched autonomy system which is soon rolling out in the approximately three million dollar Cirrus vision geumsan named Cirrus safe return system and will likewise soon be found in the three million dollar Piper and six hundred SLS this system is idiot-proof and requires only allowed one sentence of training which even a three-year-old could execute and truthfully you'd probably want to tell a three-year-old not to do it in most cases as left to their own devices they're sure to activate the system on their own randomly the sentence in training is simply push this big red button that's it from there the system will take over flying analyze the weather your fuel state of the plane potentially terrain in your path etc as well as declare emergency with ATC and continually update ATC on what it's doing and its intentions it will at the same time inform the passengers audibly and on the screen what they should be doing strapped enjoy the ride and don't touch anything it will also politely inform the passengers where it's taking them and when it will be landing from there the plane will fly to the destination Airport which will be picked among the safest options within range of your fuel supply will then land itself which in the demos we've watched does a shockingly good job at it with the worst that can be said is that in one random Piper and 600 demo it was slightly off the centerline but otherwise well on the runway and it was a very gentle landing once down the system will shut down the engines and inform the passengers when it's safe to exit presumably in the coming decade or so the system will rapidly find its way into most smaller aircraft making these stories of passengers taking over for a pilot markedly less dramatic I pushed this big red button it just doesn't have quite the same newsworthy appeal as me and the good Lord and flying this let's get into those bonus facts if you're wondering reportedly approximately 1% of commercial airliner landings are now done with auto lands though in most cases pilots prefer to do it themselves as among other reasons auto land isn't awesome when there is much wind particularly if it's of the gusty variety the cases where it might be the preferred option for the pros is in scenarios like virtually no wind where visibility is extremely poor such as in thick fog in this case the pilot may deem it safer to allow the auto land to do its thing while they closely monitor it and now for another bonus fact going back to how to queue up the radio in an aircraft whether big or small you can usually do this by putting the headphones on and then pressing a button on the yoke it looks a bit like a steering wheel or a stick noteworthy is that in some cases there might be other buttons do with trim engaging or disengaging autopilot and the like on that control as well so not always good to just go pushing buttons without looking closely to see if there's a label but if there is just one button that's going to be what that is for and if multiple buttons it's probably the one positioned for your index finger wrapped around the stick or yoke or a prominent button for your thumb often Rhett in large commercial airliners it also might not be a button but rather a toggle switch with an up-and-down position for example one for transmitting on the radio probably labeled mic and one for the flight ins phone probably labeled int you want the mic position assuming you push the correct button whatever radio frequency the pilot had queued up already which is usually the local one you're flying over whether a nearby Tower of local traffic or might be a large ATC frequency you'll be talking to someone who can give you more information when you do press the talk release to listen just like a walkie talkie and if you really want to sound like a pro before you're almost certain death when fuel runs out or probably much sooner structure your talk who are you talking to who you are as in the plane type and callsign which will probably be printed somewhere on the instrument panel in front of you what you want are going to do who you are talking to for example tip our traffic are 2 7 9 6 7 Charly Mayday Mayday Mayday just at Deer Park and the pilot just died me and Jesus are now flying this plane once all aboard requesting immediate assistance dear Park all you know just press the button and freak out you're declaring an emergency after all and you don't know what you're doing nobody is going to care if you don't have to talk on the radio properly but just remember this if you're in the u.s. odds are strong your radio communication and situation is going to be viewed by hundreds of thousands of people probably even your friends and family on various YouTube channels that cover this sort of thing so keep your cool if you want to sound awesome and later you happen to you survive also even for pilots an almost universal truth you'll find if you listen to many of these you can almost always predict which ones are going to end well or not based on the exact circumstances of the emergency or experience of the pilot but on how panicky the person flying the plane is the only exception we've personally ever heard is that time a guy was on a whole lot of drugs when he was declaring his engine out emergency he might as well have been sipping a beer on a beach as far as his tone was concerned literally right to the point when he crashed and died so do yourself a favor and try to keep your head if you've got someone talking you through it flying and landing a lot of types of small planes where you can at least walk away isn't actually super difficult if you can get over a runway landing so the plane itself can be flown again without repairs well that generally takes some training but that's the insurance company's problem not yours so I really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below and don't forget to subscribe also please do check out our fantastic sponsor cross out link to below and as always thank you for watching you

Channel: Today I Found Out

Views: 439,410

Keywords: today i found out, tifovidz12, tifo, awesome, facts, didn't know, airplanes, planes, airplane facts, plane, plane facts, landing a plane, plane passengers

Id: bP_XPLFEMng

Length: 25min 57sec (1557 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 01 2020