What does an absolute novice need to learn to make a successful emergency landing?

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

Suppose I am a passenger in a small, non-commercial plane (e.g. at most 8 seats), and the pilot suddenly dies or is otherwise incapacitated mid-flight. Suppose further that nobody else on the plane knows the first thing about flying, or that I were the only other person on the plane. I understand the basic physics of flying, and have been in airplane cockpits before for a ride, but never piloted one. Cockpits are an intimidating bank of switches and dials, and I imagine I'd have very little time to acquaint myself with them experimentally in an emergency.

What minimalistic, general information should I know in an emergency situation to try to land a small plane?

I'm looking for perhaps 5–10 fast-and-simple rules-of-thumb that would be useful in a life-or-death situation, yet easy to remember.

A great answer might include 2–3 sentence answers for things such as:

• Where might I expect to find certain, key controls?
• How could I contact air traffic control?
• What kind of terrain should I aim for, if possible?
• What rate of descent is too dangerous?
• How to deploy landing gear? (What might this button look like?!)
• How to control the aircraft speed, and how slow is too slow?
• How might I determine a good angle of attack?