What Happens If the Pilots Can't Fly a Passenger Plane?

What happens if a pilot becomes ill in flight?

Airliners carry two pilots. If one cannot fly, which is called incapacitation, the other takes over and lands. FAA guidance says training for pilots and flight attendants should cover it.

It is rare. Australia's transport safety investigator, the ATSB, reported in February 2016 that from 2010 to 2014 it happened about once every 34,000 high-capacity airline flights. With multi-pilot crews, it usually had minimal effect.

What if neither pilot can fly?

Losing both pilots is rarer still; the ATSB says pilots on one flight eating different meals has been an effective defence. Help can come from qualified people on board, such as off-duty pilots, and from air traffic control, which gives an aircraft in distress maximum assistance.

What can the autopilot do on its own?

An autopilot holds the altitude and heading the pilots set, and an autothrottle, which controls engine thrust, holds a selected speed. Many modern airliners can land automatically when the pilots choose to use it, but nothing starts that if the crew is incapacitated.

Since 2020, a few small aircraft models have been certified with an emergency autoland that a pilot or passenger can switch on: it picks an airport, calls air traffic control and lands. As far as we know, airliners have no such passenger button.

Could a passenger land an airliner?

In a YouGov survey of 20,063 US adults on 2 January 2023, 13% felt very confident and 19% somewhat confident that they could safely land a passenger airplane in an emergency, relying only on air traffic control. Aviation researchers put the chances without flying training close to zero.

Real passenger landings tend to involve small, simple aircraft. In May 2022, a passenger with no flying experience landed a small single-engine plane after its pilot fell ill, guided by a controller. It was not an airliner.

According to news reports, on 30 September 2026 a narrowbody airliner dropped into a steep dive after a violent struggle in the cockpit. A passenger reached the controls, and the aircraft began to level off. Two off-duty pilots on board then took over and landed the aircraft safely. Investigations are continuing. A passenger's job is to buy time until someone qualified takes over, not to land an airliner.