Important Things We've Learned in the Movies

[formulanone]

It's easy for anyone to land an airplane, provided there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.

Some years back, Mythbusters did a segment on this very subject using an aircraft simulator.  They concluded that it, while it was virtually impossible for an untrained person to land an airplane by the "seat of their pants" (i.e. with no intervention or help) without crashing it, it was fairly easy for the same person to successfully land the same plane when given instruction and guidance from ATC.

There was also a recent case in Great Britain where a private pilot died at the controls of a Cessna, and the passenger (who had NO flying experience) successfully landed the plane based on ATC instructions.

So, while the scenario typically depicted in most movies is highly unlikely to occur in real life, it is not entirely implausible for an untrained person to land an airplane.

There's a pilot at another forum which kind of confirms the same thing.

To be fair, I can't think of too many movies with that premise...Airplane!, perhaps. How many times until it's an over-used trope?

[roadman]

To be fair, I can't think of too many movies with that premise...Airplane!, perhaps. How many times until it's an over-used trope?

Apart from Zero Hour, which was the inspiration for Airplane! , I can't recall many movies with that premise either.  Perhaps it's like Superman and the phone booth.  I've read several of the early Superman comics, and was a fan of the TV series, but still cannot recall a single scene where they showed Clark Kent ducking into a phone booth to change.

Oddly though, I do remember the "passenger landing plane" theme being used in an episode of Laverne and Shirley, and in an episode of The Mis-Adventures Of Sheriff Lobo.  And of course, there was the scene in the failed TV series pilot San Francisco International Airport - which MST3000 did a wonderful cut-up job on - where the teenager takes off in a private plane and has to be guided back to land.

Messy divorce on Runway 3. (my favorite line from the MST out-take of the failed TV pilot)

[formulanone]

To be fair, I can't think of too many movies with that premise...Airplane!, perhaps. How many times until it's an over-used trope?

Apart from Zero Hour, which was the inspiration for Airplane! , I can't recall many movies with that premise either.  Perhaps it's like Superman and the phone booth.  I've read several of the early Superman comics, and was a fan of the TV series, but still cannot recall a single scene where they showed Clark Kent ducking into a phone booth to change.

Oddly though, I do remember the "passenger landing plane" theme being used in an episode of Laverne and Shirley, and in an episode of The Mis-Adventures Of Sheriff Lobo.  And of course, there was the scene in the failed TV series pilot San Francisco International Airport - which MST3000 did a wonderful cut-up job on - where the teenager takes off in a private plane and has to be guided back to land.

Messy divorce on Runway 3. (my favorite line from the MST out-take of the failed TV pilot)

So the trope really hasn't been refreshed in popular culture in about 35 years. As a theme, it's the "everyone else is crazy/inept/week" and the hero/ubermensch is immediately thrust into action without the ability to refuse the call to action. So it appears in other ways.

Not trying to truly knock the idea; honestly, I've actually had a dream or two about this kind of thing happening, since I'm a passenger so much in real life. And hypoxia has occurred in a few cases, although I'm not sure how often anyone (out of many on the same aircraft) could survive it.

You didn't have the fish, did you?