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Pilot here. I'm floored that a person with no flying experience could put this airplane down without a scratch. Air traffic controllers are not necessarily pil

Pilot here. I'm floored that a person with no flying experience could put this airplane down without a scratch. Air traffic controllers are not necessarily pilots, but luckily, this one was a pilot and certified instructor. ATC and passenger worked through a stressful situation to produce an amazing outcome. Bravo!

enw 4y ago
> Air traffic controllers are not necessarily pilots, but luckily, this one was a pilot and certified instructor. Source? The article itself is quite short.
- ashtonbaker 4y ago
  wapo article quotes this from the liveatc recording
- the_af 4y ago
  It is mentioned (speculated about, actually) in the ATC radio chatter, see here near the 4:50 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MDwzNtDMlA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MDwzNtDMlA
throwaway0a5e 4y ago
A lot of people in aviation wind up being instructors to rack up flight hours early in their careers. An ATC, A&P mechanic, a charter pilot or any other aviation professional that would have probably had some commercial flying time earlier in their career being an instructor isn't a given but it's also not surprising at all. The fact that they were able to verbalize stuff sufficiently well for the person at the controls to do the right thing is the more impressive part.
brightball 4y ago
I heard the story on the radio this morning and they said that not only was the controller a certified instructor but he flew this specific plane so he knew how to direct him to everything on the panel! Really incredible bit of coincidence.
- ColinWright 4y ago
  From one of the other submissions: "Morgan had never flown this model Cessna. He pulled up a picture of the instrument panel's layout and started guiding his new student step-by-step." Morgan was the ATC.
- albert_e 4y ago
  On the contrary the CNN story [0] said the controller was NOT familiar with this specific plane so he got a print out of the dashboard of that model so that he can guide the "pilot" properly. There was also a picture. [0] https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/florida-passenger-lands-plane/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/florida-passenger-lan...
  - jt2190 4y ago
    Text-only: https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_058efe221cb8dff299fa7abcf3b8878f https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_058efe221cb8dff299fa7abcf3...
  - chopin 4y ago
    I always thought that in such a situation ATC would get a flight instructor with experience on that plane to the mic as quick as possible. I have a couple of landings in a commercial simulator (A380 and 747). It is manageable in good weather and in proper landing configuration. But I would have no idea how to operate the instruments properly. I'd need someone very familiar with the plane to talk me into the proper configuration.
TomVDB 4y ago
Frankly, I’m not super surprised? I had a few hours of flight instruction before I dropped out (it just didn’t fascinate me), and what struck me was that you’re doing a landing during the first lesson. As long as the landing strip is long enough, you can take things very slowly.
mattmaroon 4y ago
Idk, I’ve only flown 172s and have only landed a handful of times myself, but I think you could fairly easily talk someone through landing with an at least decent chance of survival if the weather was good. I mean this is not an experiment you want to run, of course. But landing in good conditions is pretty intuitive. You can tell if your angle to the runway is good or bad pretty easily and just adjust the throttle. And those things will stop themselves with plenty of runway left. You could probably land a small plane halfway down the runway, not know how to operate the brakes, and still come to a crawl before the end in most places. I wouldn’t take an even money wager on it but I don’t think it’s terribly unlikely to have a decent landing. Especially since the pilot likely was showing him the controls in air before going unresponsive.
- mhb 4y ago
  > I think you could fairly easily talk someone through landing The bad news is that it is 10/28 (east-west) and the wind was reported from the north at 11 knots gusting 17. KPBI 101553Z 02011G17KT 10SM SCT042 SCT046 26/15 A student pilot with 20 hours of training probably wouldn’t have been signed off by his/her/zir/their instructor to operate in that kind of crosswind. From: https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2022/05/10/a-hero-flies-the-cessna-caravan-to-palm-beach/ https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2022/05/10/a-hero-flies-th...
  - imwillofficial 4y ago
    “signed off by his/her/zir/their instructor to operate” What does “zir” mean? I’ve seen it around but can’t remember where.
    - cecilpl2 4y ago
      It's a gender neutral pronoun.
      - imwillofficial 4y ago
        How is it different than using “their”?
rosnd 4y ago
>Pilot here. I'm floored that a person with no flying experience could put this airplane down without a scratch. Also a pilot here. I don't get it, this is a Cessna 208 we're talking about, a very easy plane to land given good conditions. They even had a very long runway to work with here.
whimsicalism 4y ago
Listening to the audio of the conversation, it doesn't seem like the passenger has no flying experience... At minimum they must have spent significant time around aviation or be ex-military. e: From another comment on Reddit > Examples: > The passenger knew what button to press on the yoke to transmit to ATC. > The passenger knew aviation phraseology and phonetics “333 Lima Delta”. > The passenger knew where the altimeter was and his altitude “I’m maintaining 9100 feet” > Passenger was able to identify the transponder and enter a squawk code. > Passenger knew what the vertical speed indicator was “I’m descending right now at 550 feet a minute passing 8640 feet”. > My wife, who flies with me regularly, might get one or two of those items, but probably couldn't point out the transponder, much less enter a squawk code without instructions.
- medion 4y ago
  None of these observations seem impossible for someone who is able to maintain low stress levels, think rationally and understand the overall general mechanics of how planes fly and what is important - altitude, speed, etc.
- egwor 4y ago
  I reckon I could do most of those things except transmit to ATC and squawk. I suspect I could google the rest or call someone to tell me how to. If there's a manual up there, then maybe that will have info?
  - littlestymaar 4y ago
    > If there's a manual up there, then maybe that will have info? I can't imaging myself getting anything from an unknown manual full of jargon in such a stressful environment!
    - verelo 4y ago
      Not sure if you've ever seen the POH for a C172, but it is thick. Example: https://www.montereynavyflyingclub.org/Other%20Docs/Cessna-172N-POH-1978.pdf https://www.montereynavyflyingclub.org/Other%20Docs/Cessna-1... Personally, ATC is your best bet here. I'd say a lot of people who have ever flown a flight simulator can get the plan low and slow enough to not cause death upon impact. I would anticipate a bumpy landing, some injury and a lost plane...so this outcome is pretty impressive imo.
loup-vaillant 4y ago
Pilot student here. I’m not floored at all, for two reasons: my own experience, and selection bias. I once maintained level on a Cessna equivalent with zero training besides video games (I loved flight simulators back in the late 90s), and a tiny bit of model flying (I flew little and crashed a lot). Maintaining altitude wasn’t trivial, but maintaining level was dead easy. I’m sure I could have managed a very slight bank turn safely. Now landing… some years later I got 5 hours of gliding. My first landing went well enough that the instructor didn’t have to take control. If my instructor got sick instead, I would give my former self 30% chance of avoiding injury or death. 75% if a trained instructor with a similar glider could tail me and observe me more closely (and I think there were). Never ever gonna risk such folly of course, but I wouldn’t have been doomed either. Then there’s selection bias: we hear of this because it is a feat. No question about that. Now let’s not forget about all the people that tried this and died. For those we’ll only hear of the pilot getting sick and the plane crashing. Or just the plane crashing. Those make for less impressive headlines.
- eachro 4y ago
  I think doing this under pressure is what's most impressive.
  - loup-vaillant 4y ago
    Ah yes. I think that depends on the individual. Knowing myself in that kind of situation, I'm fairly confident I wouldn't have panicked. I would have been worried enough that it would have affected my abilities. Hmm, maybe 75% with an instructor tailing my was too optimist. I should probably lower that to 60%.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  Passenger who got to hold the stick for a bit. Flying the plane is easy. Flying it roughly at some altitude in a rough direction you're given is also easy. Now, landing it? That's an entirely different beast for sure.
  - 4y ago
freerobby 4y ago
Also pilot here, agreed. I suspect there is a little more to the story. On the LiveATC audio, he was giving descent rates and asking tower/approach for headings. Didn't speak like a pilot but seemed to know more than a layperson. Maybe some aviation exposure but no flight time? Whatever the case, very well done by both him and ATC.
- randall 4y ago
  It seems reasonable that if someone is in a two person cessna they probably have some additional flight exposure, right? I wouldn't know anything about most of that stuff... but I could probably figure out some of it in the moment just because of my technical bent. A lot of my founder friends are pilots, and were able to adapt pretty quickly... so maybe it's one of those things?
  - aksss 4y ago
    We're all ignoring the possibility that the pilot gave him the, "Now if I become incapacitated," speech before taking off.
    - jayofdoom 4y ago
      The handful of times I've been up with private pilots who took me in their cessna, I did get an if I become incapacitated speech where they showed me how to operate the radios how to squawk 7700 and how to keep the plane level before we even took off.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      I’ve given my wife the basic heading, airspeed, trim, radio comms briefing and experience. (And also given my older kid the same experience but just for fun.) If I kicked off in flight on day/good weather, and she was up front, I’m pretty sure that airplane would end up inside the airport perimeter, probably stopped on all three wheels on a runway. That’s not to take anything away from this pax feat, but it’s pretty likely they at least had a pretty good idea of how things work. (And were in a fairly simple airplane.)
FartyMcFarter 4y ago
I had flight lessons, and after a few hours of training (most of which were unrelated to landing), I was able to land on a short runway, about 2000 feet long. Landing on a long runway (10001 feet / 3048 meters [1]) as was done here is much easier, as long as the plane doesn't malfunction and visibility is good. So I'm not that surprised that some people would be able to do this given good instructions over the radio / phone. Especially so if the person doing it has witnessed landings from a cockpit before, which may have been the case here. With such a long and wide runway, if you can direct the plane to fly over the runway and then cut off power, that should be enough to land the plane somewhat safely I would think. [1] Runway 10L at https://skyvector.com/airport/PBI/Palm-Beach-International-Airport https://skyvector.com/airport/PBI/Palm-Beach-International-A...
- pilot7378535 4y ago
  Same, I'd hate to see a novice try to land on a narrow 2000' runway hemmed in by tall trees and a "snotty" 7+ kt crosswind component pushing the plane around. Lucky they were in Florida with working radios and gas in the tank to reach an accommodating runway. None of that should detract from the emergency pilot's excellent handling of the situation though—bravo! [edit] Apparently there was a significant crosswind: KPBI 101553Z 02011G17KT 10SM SCT042 SCT046 26/15 Even more impressive then!
  - FartyMcFarter 4y ago
    Yes, to be clear I'm not saying that anyone would be able to do this, just keeping cool enough to do anything decent (including talking on the radio) was already a huge achievement. My point was just that this is feasible a lot of the time with some good radio help .
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - buildsjets 4y ago
    Translation for the non-pilots: The weather at Palm Beach International Airport on the 10’th at 15:53 GMT was: Winds, from the North-Northeast at 11 knots, gusting up to 17 knots. Visibility 10 statute miles. Clouds, some scattered ones at 4,200 and 4,600 feet above the airport ground level. Temperature 26 Celsius, dew point 15 Celsius. METAR is pretty character efficient.
alfalfasprout 4y ago
I'm not overly surprised for two reasons: 1) This was a single engine plane w/out constant speed prop. So really the only things to worry about would be throttle, flight controls (maybe trim), and mixture. 2) Looks like it was a steam gauge plane so luckily the student didn't have to learn a fugly glass panel UI 3) The stall speed on these planes is pretty low, so ATC probably had them do a pattern to get used to the distances and then come in a bit hot for the actual landing. Coming in a bit hot in a cessna like that just results in landing deep or a rough landing when you pull the power vs. stalling and crashing (which is much more likely if the PIC tried to do 60 knots on final). If they roll past the end of the runway a bit it'll damage the plane but at least they're on the ground. 4) The landing gear on those planes is really strong. You can botch the landing and the plane will be fine.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Since you mention landing hot --- from the landing video, my take is that the approach was fast, and that the pilot used up a lot of runway before making actual ground contact. That said, there was plenty of runway available, and on touchdown, the excess speed (if any) was easily compensated for. The passenger-pilot clearly had general aviation familiarity, and kept a cool head. Both of which help immensely. (My own flight experience: general understanding of flight controls and theory, pax in a handful of small-plane flights, RH seat. An hour or so of straight-and-level flying. A bit of sim. No formal training.)
zapdrive 4y ago
Obama administration pushed Affirmative Action into ATC [0], lowering the scores required for "minorites". Candidates with maths and science background are actually being penalized to increase "diversity". 0 https://www.wsj.com/articles/affirmative-action-lands-in-the-air-traffic-control-tower-1433283292 https://www.wsj.com/articles/affirmative-action-lands-in-the...
- wolverine876 4y ago
  Ironically, most of American industry has long been an affirmative action program for white males - in education, hiring, promotion, etc., they have been given preference to others. That affirmative action program is far larger and has done far more damage than any other; that is the problem.
- DontMindit 4y ago
  [flagged]
eins1234 4y ago
> Pilot here. For a second, I thought you were the pilot from the article that was incapacitated haha...
14 4y ago
What do you consider flying experience? I, if given a chance would attempt to land a plane today and have no formal training. Mostly I would want to do it to prove some around me that is is possible. I did however play a million hours of pilot wings though that is hardly a flight simulator it is just to basic. I have dabbled slightly with Microsoft flight simulator but again just to fly around and play never took it seriously. I’ve always wanted to fly and honestly think I would land a plane. I don’t think I would do everything correctly like a pilot but given a moderately sized runway think I could easily bring a plane down safely. I’m confident enough that if given the chance today I would go and try it. Maybe I am just crazy.
neverminder 4y ago
I'm not a pilot, but isn't this plane like the easiest to pilot and thus land for someone inexperienced? If this was a jet, the passenger in question would probably be pretty screwed?
- jhugo 4y ago
  No, this wasn't a little Cessna 172. This aircraft is a turboprop and likely has a glass cockpit. Still relatively simpler in terms of systems than most jets, but because it's a turbine it wouldn't be your first choice for someone inexperienced to take over. Interestingly a big jet might be easier. It would likely be on autopilot and autothrottle when the novice took over. ATC would need to talk them through programming a diversion into FMS and some other systems stuff, but if there was an airport nearby with good weather and a suitable ILS, and nothing failed, they could set up an autoland and never have to actually handle the aircraft themselves.
rburhum 4y ago
I have only flown a plane once. Took off and landed it without a problem with an instructor next to me. He said I was really good and complemented me a lot because he thought I was a natural during the simulator class and the real Cessna flight. I just thanked him. Do you want to know my secret? I never told him that I worked a year at MS Game Studios as a dev for MS Flight Simulator.

enw 4y ago

> Air traffic controllers are not necessarily pilots, but luckily, this one was a pilot and certified instructor. Source? The article itself is quite short.

ashtonbaker 4y ago
wapo article quotes this from the liveatc recording
the_af 4y ago
It is mentioned (speculated about, actually) in the ATC radio chatter, see here near the 4:50 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MDwzNtDMlA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MDwzNtDMlA

throwaway0a5e 4y ago

A lot of people in aviation wind up being instructors to rack up flight hours early in their careers. An ATC, A&P mechanic, a charter pilot or any other aviation professional that would have probably had some commercial flying time earlier in their career being an instructor isn't a given but it's also not surprising at all. The fact that they were able to verbalize stuff sufficiently well for the person at the controls to do the right thing is the more impressive part.

brightball 4y ago

I heard the story on the radio this morning and they said that not only was the controller a certified instructor but he flew this specific plane so he knew how to direct him to everything on the panel! Really incredible bit of coincidence.

ColinWright 4y ago
From one of the other submissions: "Morgan had never flown this model Cessna. He pulled up a picture of the instrument panel's layout and started guiding his new student step-by-step." Morgan was the ATC.
albert_e 4y ago
On the contrary the CNN story [0] said the controller was NOT familiar with this specific plane so he got a print out of the dashboard of that model so that he can guide the "pilot" properly. There was also a picture. [0] https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/florida-passenger-lands-plane/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/florida-passenger-lan...
- jt2190 4y ago
  Text-only: https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_058efe221cb8dff299fa7abcf3b8878f https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_058efe221cb8dff299fa7abcf3...
- chopin 4y ago
  I always thought that in such a situation ATC would get a flight instructor with experience on that plane to the mic as quick as possible. I have a couple of landings in a commercial simulator (A380 and 747). It is manageable in good weather and in proper landing configuration. But I would have no idea how to operate the instruments properly. I'd need someone very familiar with the plane to talk me into the proper configuration.

TomVDB 4y ago

Frankly, I’m not super surprised? I had a few hours of flight instruction before I dropped out (it just didn’t fascinate me), and what struck me was that you’re doing a landing during the first lesson. As long as the landing strip is long enough, you can take things very slowly.

mattmaroon 4y ago

Idk, I’ve only flown 172s and have only landed a handful of times myself, but I think you could fairly easily talk someone through landing with an at least decent chance of survival if the weather was good. I mean this is not an experiment you want to run, of course. But landing in good conditions is pretty intuitive. You can tell if your angle to the runway is good or bad pretty easily and just adjust the throttle. And those things will stop themselves with plenty of runway left. You could probably land a small plane halfway down the runway, not know how to operate the brakes, and still come to a crawl before the end in most places. I wouldn’t take an even money wager on it but I don’t think it’s terribly unlikely to have a decent landing. Especially since the pilot likely was showing him the controls in air before going unresponsive.

mhb 4y ago
> I think you could fairly easily talk someone through landing The bad news is that it is 10/28 (east-west) and the wind was reported from the north at 11 knots gusting 17. KPBI 101553Z 02011G17KT 10SM SCT042 SCT046 26/15 A student pilot with 20 hours of training probably wouldn’t have been signed off by his/her/zir/their instructor to operate in that kind of crosswind. From: https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2022/05/10/a-hero-flies-the-cessna-caravan-to-palm-beach/ https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2022/05/10/a-hero-flies-th...
- imwillofficial 4y ago
  “signed off by his/her/zir/their instructor to operate” What does “zir” mean? I’ve seen it around but can’t remember where.
  - cecilpl2 4y ago
    It's a gender neutral pronoun.
    - imwillofficial 4y ago
      How is it different than using “their”?

rosnd 4y ago

>Pilot here. I'm floored that a person with no flying experience could put this airplane down without a scratch. Also a pilot here. I don't get it, this is a Cessna 208 we're talking about, a very easy plane to land given good conditions. They even had a very long runway to work with here.

whimsicalism 4y ago

Listening to the audio of the conversation, it doesn't seem like the passenger has no flying experience... At minimum they must have spent significant time around aviation or be ex-military. e: From another comment on Reddit > Examples: > The passenger knew what button to press on the yoke to transmit to ATC. > The passenger knew aviation phraseology and phonetics “333 Lima Delta”. > The passenger knew where the altimeter was and his altitude “I’m maintaining 9100 feet” > Passenger was able to identify the transponder and enter a squawk code. > Passenger knew what the vertical speed indicator was “I’m descending right now at 550 feet a minute passing 8640 feet”. > My wife, who flies with me regularly, might get one or two of those items, but probably couldn't point out the transponder, much less enter a squawk code without instructions.

medion 4y ago
None of these observations seem impossible for someone who is able to maintain low stress levels, think rationally and understand the overall general mechanics of how planes fly and what is important - altitude, speed, etc.
egwor 4y ago
I reckon I could do most of those things except transmit to ATC and squawk. I suspect I could google the rest or call someone to tell me how to. If there's a manual up there, then maybe that will have info?
- littlestymaar 4y ago
  > If there's a manual up there, then maybe that will have info? I can't imaging myself getting anything from an unknown manual full of jargon in such a stressful environment!
  - verelo 4y ago
    Not sure if you've ever seen the POH for a C172, but it is thick. Example: https://www.montereynavyflyingclub.org/Other%20Docs/Cessna-172N-POH-1978.pdf https://www.montereynavyflyingclub.org/Other%20Docs/Cessna-1... Personally, ATC is your best bet here. I'd say a lot of people who have ever flown a flight simulator can get the plan low and slow enough to not cause death upon impact. I would anticipate a bumpy landing, some injury and a lost plane...so this outcome is pretty impressive imo.

loup-vaillant 4y ago

Pilot student here. I’m not floored at all, for two reasons: my own experience, and selection bias. I once maintained level on a Cessna equivalent with zero training besides video games (I loved flight simulators back in the late 90s), and a tiny bit of model flying (I flew little and crashed a lot). Maintaining altitude wasn’t trivial, but maintaining level was dead easy. I’m sure I could have managed a very slight bank turn safely. Now landing… some years later I got 5 hours of gliding. My first landing went well enough that the instructor didn’t have to take control. If my instructor got sick instead, I would give my former self 30% chance of avoiding injury or death. 75% if a trained instructor with a similar glider could tail me and observe me more closely (and I think there were). Never ever gonna risk such folly of course, but I wouldn’t have been doomed either. Then there’s selection bias: we hear of this because it is a feat. No question about that. Now let’s not forget about all the people that tried this and died. For those we’ll only hear of the pilot getting sick and the plane crashing. Or just the plane crashing. Those make for less impressive headlines.

eachro 4y ago
I think doing this under pressure is what's most impressive.
- loup-vaillant 4y ago
  Ah yes. I think that depends on the individual. Knowing myself in that kind of situation, I'm fairly confident I wouldn't have panicked. I would have been worried enough that it would have affected my abilities. Hmm, maybe 75% with an instructor tailing my was too optimist. I should probably lower that to 60%.
tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
Passenger who got to hold the stick for a bit. Flying the plane is easy. Flying it roughly at some altitude in a rough direction you're given is also easy. Now, landing it? That's an entirely different beast for sure.
- 4y ago

freerobby 4y ago

Also pilot here, agreed. I suspect there is a little more to the story. On the LiveATC audio, he was giving descent rates and asking tower/approach for headings. Didn't speak like a pilot but seemed to know more than a layperson. Maybe some aviation exposure but no flight time? Whatever the case, very well done by both him and ATC.

randall 4y ago
It seems reasonable that if someone is in a two person cessna they probably have some additional flight exposure, right? I wouldn't know anything about most of that stuff... but I could probably figure out some of it in the moment just because of my technical bent. A lot of my founder friends are pilots, and were able to adapt pretty quickly... so maybe it's one of those things?
- aksss 4y ago
  We're all ignoring the possibility that the pilot gave him the, "Now if I become incapacitated," speech before taking off.
  - jayofdoom 4y ago
    The handful of times I've been up with private pilots who took me in their cessna, I did get an if I become incapacitated speech where they showed me how to operate the radios how to squawk 7700 and how to keep the plane level before we even took off.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    I’ve given my wife the basic heading, airspeed, trim, radio comms briefing and experience. (And also given my older kid the same experience but just for fun.) If I kicked off in flight on day/good weather, and she was up front, I’m pretty sure that airplane would end up inside the airport perimeter, probably stopped on all three wheels on a runway. That’s not to take anything away from this pax feat, but it’s pretty likely they at least had a pretty good idea of how things work. (And were in a fairly simple airplane.)

FartyMcFarter 4y ago

I had flight lessons, and after a few hours of training (most of which were unrelated to landing), I was able to land on a short runway, about 2000 feet long. Landing on a long runway (10001 feet / 3048 meters [1]) as was done here is much easier, as long as the plane doesn't malfunction and visibility is good. So I'm not that surprised that some people would be able to do this given good instructions over the radio / phone. Especially so if the person doing it has witnessed landings from a cockpit before, which may have been the case here. With such a long and wide runway, if you can direct the plane to fly over the runway and then cut off power, that should be enough to land the plane somewhat safely I would think. [1] Runway 10L at https://skyvector.com/airport/PBI/Palm-Beach-International-Airport https://skyvector.com/airport/PBI/Palm-Beach-International-A...

pilot7378535 4y ago
Same, I'd hate to see a novice try to land on a narrow 2000' runway hemmed in by tall trees and a "snotty" 7+ kt crosswind component pushing the plane around. Lucky they were in Florida with working radios and gas in the tank to reach an accommodating runway. None of that should detract from the emergency pilot's excellent handling of the situation though—bravo! [edit] Apparently there was a significant crosswind: KPBI 101553Z 02011G17KT 10SM SCT042 SCT046 26/15 Even more impressive then!
- FartyMcFarter 4y ago
  Yes, to be clear I'm not saying that anyone would be able to do this, just keeping cool enough to do anything decent (including talking on the radio) was already a huge achievement. My point was just that this is feasible a lot of the time with some good radio help .
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- buildsjets 4y ago
  Translation for the non-pilots: The weather at Palm Beach International Airport on the 10’th at 15:53 GMT was: Winds, from the North-Northeast at 11 knots, gusting up to 17 knots. Visibility 10 statute miles. Clouds, some scattered ones at 4,200 and 4,600 feet above the airport ground level. Temperature 26 Celsius, dew point 15 Celsius. METAR is pretty character efficient.

alfalfasprout 4y ago

I'm not overly surprised for two reasons: 1) This was a single engine plane w/out constant speed prop. So really the only things to worry about would be throttle, flight controls (maybe trim), and mixture. 2) Looks like it was a steam gauge plane so luckily the student didn't have to learn a fugly glass panel UI 3) The stall speed on these planes is pretty low, so ATC probably had them do a pattern to get used to the distances and then come in a bit hot for the actual landing. Coming in a bit hot in a cessna like that just results in landing deep or a rough landing when you pull the power vs. stalling and crashing (which is much more likely if the PIC tried to do 60 knots on final). If they roll past the end of the runway a bit it'll damage the plane but at least they're on the ground. 4) The landing gear on those planes is really strong. You can botch the landing and the plane will be fine.

dredmorbius 4y ago
Since you mention landing hot --- from the landing video, my take is that the approach was fast, and that the pilot used up a lot of runway before making actual ground contact. That said, there was plenty of runway available, and on touchdown, the excess speed (if any) was easily compensated for. The passenger-pilot clearly had general aviation familiarity, and kept a cool head. Both of which help immensely. (My own flight experience: general understanding of flight controls and theory, pax in a handful of small-plane flights, RH seat. An hour or so of straight-and-level flying. A bit of sim. No formal training.)

zapdrive 4y ago

Obama administration pushed Affirmative Action into ATC [0], lowering the scores required for "minorites". Candidates with maths and science background are actually being penalized to increase "diversity". 0 https://www.wsj.com/articles/affirmative-action-lands-in-the-air-traffic-control-tower-1433283292 https://www.wsj.com/articles/affirmative-action-lands-in-the...

wolverine876 4y ago
Ironically, most of American industry has long been an affirmative action program for white males - in education, hiring, promotion, etc., they have been given preference to others. That affirmative action program is far larger and has done far more damage than any other; that is the problem.
DontMindit 4y ago
[flagged]

eins1234 4y ago

> Pilot here. For a second, I thought you were the pilot from the article that was incapacitated haha...

14 4y ago

What do you consider flying experience? I, if given a chance would attempt to land a plane today and have no formal training. Mostly I would want to do it to prove some around me that is is possible. I did however play a million hours of pilot wings though that is hardly a flight simulator it is just to basic. I have dabbled slightly with Microsoft flight simulator but again just to fly around and play never took it seriously. I’ve always wanted to fly and honestly think I would land a plane. I don’t think I would do everything correctly like a pilot but given a moderately sized runway think I could easily bring a plane down safely. I’m confident enough that if given the chance today I would go and try it. Maybe I am just crazy.

neverminder 4y ago

I'm not a pilot, but isn't this plane like the easiest to pilot and thus land for someone inexperienced? If this was a jet, the passenger in question would probably be pretty screwed?

jhugo 4y ago
No, this wasn't a little Cessna 172. This aircraft is a turboprop and likely has a glass cockpit. Still relatively simpler in terms of systems than most jets, but because it's a turbine it wouldn't be your first choice for someone inexperienced to take over. Interestingly a big jet might be easier. It would likely be on autopilot and autothrottle when the novice took over. ATC would need to talk them through programming a diversion into FMS and some other systems stuff, but if there was an airport nearby with good weather and a suitable ILS, and nothing failed, they could set up an autoland and never have to actually handle the aircraft themselves.

rburhum 4y ago

I have only flown a plane once. Took off and landed it without a problem with an instructor next to me. He said I was really good and complemented me a lot because he thought I was a natural during the simulator class and the real Cessna flight. I just thanked him. Do you want to know my secret? I never told him that I worked a year at MS Game Studios as a dev for MS Flight Simulator.