Fyi-could a layperson land a jumbo jet?

[enzo1]

Possibly, but only with a lot of luck and some autopilot assistance. Amateurs have landed smaller private planes after the pilot became incapacitated, but outside of 1970s disaster movies, it has never happened with a commercial passenger aircraft.
Simply getting to the controls is going to be very difficult. After 9/11, all commercial aircraft have secure cockpit doors designed to prevent anyone from entering during a flight. If you did manage to get inside and get in touch with a control tower or, more likely, the radar room (the control tower takes over only after an airplane is within 10 miles of landing), it’s crucial that there be a pilot on hand who has flown that specific type of plane (or someone else very familiar with it) to give instructions. In most cases, the controller in the tower would instruct you to input basic adjustments to altitude, airspeed and direction into the aircraft’s autopilot system.
“It’s much like a VCR, where you’ve got certain commands you have to set up to record, only much, much more difficult,” says Dale Wright, the director of safety and technology for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. If you punch in the correct settings on the right instruments and then hit autopilot, the airplane does the rest.
Assuming you remain composed, the biggest factor in a successful landing is whether or not the plane is equipped with an auto-land system to control the throttles and, as its name suggests, land the plane. Not all large commercial aircraft have auto-land, however, and without it, you would be forced to disconnect autopilot to land. At that point, says Chris Dancy, a spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the most likely mistake an amateur would make would be to fly too low, or too slow, which could lead to an aerodynamic stall, in which the airflow around the wing is no longer smooth enough to keep the plane in the air.
Even if the plane has autoland, setting down a 400-ton jet is still an enormous task. After activating the system, you’d have to engage the wing flaps and the landing gear and continually input new speed settings as the plane descended. But if you can dial in all the right numbers (aided by your pal in the control tower), once the plane is about three miles from touching down, the auto-land system kicks in and does the rest of the work, letting you sit back and enjoy the view.
Without auto-land, on touching down you would have to hit the brakes, which are controlled by way of a complicated foot pedal system, and reverse the thrust of the engines (if the runway is short) to stop the plane, Wright says. He guesses that a novice has a “less than 1 percent chance of landing and keeping [the plane] on the runway and not hurting anybody. And that's on a good day." FYI: Could A Layperson Land A Jumbo Jet? | Popular Science

[URY914]

Anyone can "land" a plane. Walking away is another thing....

[Traveller]

I wouldn't wish it, but I would give a 737 a try without being too worried. I'd need a few circuits to get the feel. Emergency procedures left out of the picture.

What I would need is some hours on turbine engines.

[Embraer]

haha

[Scuba Steve]

Autoland can control the TRs?

[ronster]

Probably but where and with which side up would be the question.

[Embraer]

Originally Posted by Scuba Steve

Autoland can control the TRs?

possible...along with autobraking.

[cgarr]

What kind of layperson?

We have an AA pilot in our club years ago who couldn't land my SE5a without taking out a runway light!

[Traveller]

Originally Posted by cgarr

What kind of layperson?

One with several thousand hours of instructing.

[air-cool-me]

Following a weird twist of fate I was left in a Boeing 747-400 simulator with two mid-50's secretaries who had no flying experience. (pull to go up, push to go down) The simulator session was a gift from the training center.

It was as entertaining as it was eye opening. Keeping them alive was a challenge!

After an hour they figured out how the controls worked and with some throttle movement I could keep us upright and level.

Setting up the plane so it could land itself was difficult because I could not use any terminology that would be familiar to even the greenest of airline pilot. (or simfan)

I had one important advantage over a controller on the ground..... I could point!

During the last 30min of the session we put the secretaries repeatedly at 200ft on final approach with mixed results. Giving them every opportunity to succeed usually produced a survivable crash in the general vicinity of the runway.

All and all it was pretty fun. In my opinion the chances of survival would increase exponentially with any flying experience.

[944Larry]

I had the opportunity to go into the cockpit of a 747 (on the ground) and was astounded at how high the thing sit and what a poor overall view you had. I could not even see the wingtips from any cockpit window. Even with all my hours I don't think I'd stand a chance in Hell of landing the thing successfully.

[Gogar]

Dude, I landed a 737 at Tegucigalpa on my computer. Does that count?

[Zeke]

What's the FYI part of the question?

For your information, I could not land a jumbo jet. I couldn't dock a ship either. I doubt I could drive a semi other than in a straight line and only if you showed me the gears.

[emcon5]

I managed to land a Navy P3 Orion in the simulator on my first try (with coaching from a veteran instructor pilot), but by that time I had about 600 hours crew time, and observed several hundred approach and landings sitting in the flight station.

With none of that, I would have been a lawn dart.

[rattlsnak]

They tried this on Mythbusters not too long ago. Put them in a sim and they tried to land. Many times.

Result: Possible, but highly unlikely that an average person could land safely..

[Vonzipper]

Why does this bring up "It's a mad mad mad world" classic flying scenes

[Normy]

"Can a lay-person land a 747?"

My answer is yes. Two situations: 1. A person with a private pilots license is now in control of a 747. A 747 seats about 450 people typically. Among the world population, I could imagine that the average 747 passenger complement typically has a few amateur pilots on board. These folks usually fly video games which actually do a good job of simulating aircraft.

At the same time, if a laptop pilot ever tried to actually fly a real airliner- he'd probably get it off the ground.....but then he'd then he'd destroy the engines!

2. Yes, a lay person can land a 747; Just push the control yokes forward as far as you can get them; The Mexicana airplane will go straight into the ground!

3. I'm not responsible for this!

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by Traveller

I wouldn't wish it, but I would give a 737 a try without being too worried. I'd need a few circuits to get the feel. Emergency procedures left out of the picture.

What I would need is some hours on turbine engines.

Turbine engines are way easier than pistons.

Anyone can do it, but some will be much better at it. After instructing around the world on various types of jets, one of the things I came away with is that you simply do not know what the student is going to do and you need to be ready to take over most of the time. After 5 minutes with someone you have a pretty good idea what they are going to be like.

[sc_rufctr]

Apologies Normy but I don't think a layperson could land a Jumbo.
Maybe a one in one thousand freak could but not the average Joe or Martha.

Please note: Anyone with a Pilots license is not a layperson.

Originally Posted by Normy

"Can a lay-person land a 747?"

My answer is yes. Two situations: 1. A person with a private pilots license is now in control of a 747. A 747 seats about 450 people typically. Among the world population, I could imagine that the average 747 passenger complement typically has a few amateur pilots on board. These folks usually fly video games which actually do a good job of simulating aircraft.

At the same time, if a laptop pilot ever tried to actually fly a real airliner- he'd probably get it off the ground.....but then he'd then he'd destroy the engines!

2. Yes, a lay person can land a 747; Just push the control yokes forward as far as you can get them; The Mexicana airplane will go straight into the ground!

3. I'm not responsible for this!

[Geronimo '74]

mythbusters tried this