Has any passenger landed commercial airliner?

Peter Ha

Peter Ha

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Answer to the age-old question: “Can non-pilot passenger land an airplane?”
As student pilot, I did think this was possible... not anymore. :rolleyes:

 
Are you asking for a real answer? Or pot stirring?
 
Yes and no. Depends on plane, skill, and knowledge level. If i get someone set up on an ils configured and stable sure. If someone just tries a handflown visual with only 172 time and no coaching......
 
There was Doug White who had to land his chartered King Air at MIA after his pilot died. You decide if that's a commercial airliner.
 
To quote the famous lines, my name is not Shirley and don't call me Shirley!
 
Kurt Russell did with a little help from Halle Berry. Definitely wasn’t a landing to be proud of though.
 
Probably so! So much information so few brain cells still working...thought both of those lines were in Airplane. Good excuse to watch it again:)
 
Back to the thread don't believe so, but who is to say? oc H or some of you airline grey beards ever hear of this?

Circa 1977 in the Navy there was a rumor about a student landing a T-2 after the instructor was incapacitated. Also heard the student was thrown out of training for disobeying the order to punch both of them out using the command ejection function.
 
There have been one or 3, when one pilot became incapacitated, a neophyte came up to sit in the seat as the rated pilot flew. It’s a small insurance policy, should anything happen to the lone pilot, mostly just keep some normalcy. The media makes a big deal out of it, though the seat warmer never really operated the controls.
 
IFR Magazine did a test probably a decade or two ago where they grabbed three people: A compete non-pilot, a student pilot, and an experienced IFR private pilot (and air traffic controller, the last guy was a friend of mine) and dropped them in an airliner simulator with essentially what you could expect in the "Airplane!" type scenario. Not particularly successful, though I think the student pilot managed to at least crash on the airport.
 
On the other hand, my wife on a trip to NASA Houston got to fly the Shuttle orbiter development simulator. She didn't do well flying it visually, but after asking them if the instrument nav works. It has an ILS style indicator from the flight director. She was able to track that to the runway and land.
 
bflynn said:
There was Doug White who had to land his chartered King Air at MIA after his pilot died. You decide if that's a commercial airliner.
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He actually owned the King Air and chartered it out to people. He was a PPL ASEL at the time, so he had experience in light aircraft. He ended up going all the way through CMEL. Most decent ASEL pilots could probably handle landing a King Air in VMC, as long as both engines were running right.
 
Air Progress magazine did a thing on this too, sometime back in the 1970s. As I recall, they set up a 727 simulator in mid cruise and showed a 200 hour private pilot to the cockpit. Took him a little while to figure out the radio, then they had a 727 pilot on the other end to talk him down. I don't recall if he did any practice approaches first, but he got it down OK.
 
There are a number of these experiments, in simulators, on YouTube. The problem is that advice from "ATC" always seems to be influenced by what the sim instructor sees the "passenger" doing. In a real event, ATC can't see what's going on in the cockpit.
 
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So good of Kenny Phillips to find that Mythbusters video. I recall seeing it when they were on the air. It was not pretty. They need to make these aircraft easier to fly.
 
Maxnr said:
So good of Kenny Phillips to find that Mythbusters video. I recall seeing it when they were on the air. It was not pretty. They need to make these aircraft easier to fly.
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Maybe it could be done with software....
 
Clip4 said:
I am certain several people died while you were flying a 777. Even more after you landed.
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Class D sim....and nothing broke. :D

Took off......climbed to 15K ft......leveled then pitched up +15 deg barrel rolled right.....barrel rolled left.....180 returned and landed. Had the sim crew laughing....they'd never seen that. :D
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
Class D sim....and nothing broke. :D

Took off......climbed to 15K ft......leveled then pitched up +15 deg barrel rolled right.....barrel rolled left.....180 returned and landed. Had the sim crew laughing....they'd never seen that. :D
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So how did you overcome the normal mode that allowed you to go past bank limits?
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
Class D sim....and nothing broke. :D

Took off......climbed to 15K ft......leveled then pitched up +15 deg barrel rolled right.....barrel rolled left.....180 returned and landed. Had the sim crew laughing....they'd never seen that. :D
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Doc Holliday said:
So how did you overcome the normal mode that allowed you to go past bank limits?
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Unlike the Airbus, the 777 will allow you to exceed pitch and bank limits. It just gives you feedback through the controls that tell you you are doing it. It doesn’t like it but it will let you do it.

The simulator itself doesn’t much like it either.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Unlike the Airbus, the 777 will allow you to exceed pitch and bank limits. It just gives you feedback through the controls that tell you you are doing it. It doesn’t like it but it will let you do it.

The simulator itself doesn’t much like it either.
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Most civilian sims (motion based) don't like aerobatic maneuvers. Things can get out of hand quickly.
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
Class D sim....and nothing broke. :D

Took off......climbed to 15K ft......leveled then pitched up +15 deg barrel rolled right.....barrel rolled left.....180 returned and landed. Had the sim crew laughing....they'd never seen that. :D
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People still died while you were flying your simulated flight.
 
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