Everyone knows that Hollywood takes some major liberties with the truth and what is actually possible, but even so, it’s easy to believe that we can really do anything we put our minds to.
The truth is, though, that even if you really needed to land an airplane to save hundreds of lives, there’s almost no chance you could manifest it into happening.
If you’re sitting there thinking “I’m not sure that’s true,” you’re not alone – around a third of Americans are at least somewhat confident the could rely on air traffic control and autopilot to safely land a commercial jet.
Image Credit: iStock
To break it down further, this works out to 50% of men but only 1 in 5 women.
That said, when The Washington Post put 6 subjects through a simulator of an Airbus A320, only 1 of the 3 untrained pilots were able to not kill everyone on board.
They did, however, roll the plane off the runway and kill and/or maim a fair number of passengers.
The three pilots with some experience did better, mostly because they were able to already know how the radio works.
The good news is that there’s also almost no chance someone with no experience would ever be needed to land a plane. There are two pilots for a reason, and in real life, there has only been one instance where both of them were incapacitated at the same time.
The incident, which took place on a Boeing 737 in 2005, resulted in a crash with no survivors.
Image Credit: iStock
The flight attendant who attempted to take over did have some flight training.
Still, if this ever does happen to you, the best thing to do first is to remember that you are not the person for the job. Instead, search the plane for anyone with hands-on flying experience, as they actually do reasonably well in simulated experiments.
If the unthinkable happens and there’s really no other options, here are some tips (that will very likely not save anyone’s life, but it will be good to have something to do so you don’t have to think about that).
First, don’t panic. Take a few deep breaths and don’t touch anything until you have a plant.
Second, don’t touch anything – especially not the autopilot, which should stay engaged as long as possible.
Third, find the radio. You can touch that in order to figure out how it works and to start screaming for help.
Follow their instructions calmly so that they can know that they did everything they could to help once you’ve crashed and everyone has burned.
I’m being cheeky, but experts all agree that even if you manage to talk to air traffic control and get help, you’ll be very unlikely to manage the landing.
Patrick Smith, a commercial pilot, confirms.
“A non-pilot wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to even work the communication radios, let alone fly and land the jet.”
Image Credit: iStock
That’s even if the plane was already lined up with the runway and ready for landing.
“Where, exactly, is the plane from the runway in terms of altitude, distance, and speed? How accurate are this person’s seat-of-the-pants interpretations of what the plane is doing? Much of it, too, would come down to luck.”
No passenger has ever successfully landed a commercial plane, in fact, though on occasion, people without experience have managed to be guided through landing smaller aircraft.
So in this case, that confidence is definitely misplaced.