An airplane has, for the first time, automatically landed itself after an in-flight emergency, according to the system’s manufacturer.
Two people emerged unscathed from the Beechcraft Super King Air 200 after it stopped on the runway at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport near Denver, according to video posted by emergency responders.
The twin-engine turboprop landed under the control of Garmin’s Autoland system, which the company says is now installed on about 1,700 airplanes. “This was the first use of Autoland from start-to-finish in an actual emergency,” Garmin said in a statement.
I know this has happend before, but it was usually on small aircraft with a single pilot lol.
There’s a high chance that many domestic flights will have another pilot in a jump seat or just traveling off duty.
Also, if something has incapacitated the pilot and copilot, the odds that any of the passengers are even conscious seem pretty low.