Crash-Course Landing: Difference between revisions

Seems ridiculous, right? I mean, just a few simple instructions and you can learn how to land a plane? Please!

 

 

And it was still a cliché long before they tried it out. And even if it's actually possible, the contrivances to get the hero into this situation tend to stretch the [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief]].

{{examples}}

 

* A variation in ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' had Max and Gym Leader Tate taking instructions from Tate's father to land a ''rocket ship''.

* The ''[[Detective Conan]]'' [[Non-Serial Movie]] ''Magician of the Silver Sky'' features a particularly intricate (or contrived) example: {{spoiler|after poison incapacitates its pilots and a lightning strike disables the autopilot and radio, high school girls Ran and Sonoko must manually land an airliner (that is also missing one engine and almost out of fuel) on an unlit pier. Fortunately they have help from high school detective Shinichi Kudo (in the person of Conan disguising his voice, calling them from an intercom phone to talk them through the procedure) and flamboyant thief Kaitou Kid (who manipulates the dozens of police cars chasing him into forming up as makeshift runway lights).}}

 

== Comic Books ==

* Ted Striker did this in both ''Zero Hour!'' and ''[[Airplane!]]'' Ted was a pilot, but he was shell-shocked and had bad eyes in the former, and in the latter he was entirely unused to a multi-engine jumbo jet (see ''Runway Zero-Eight'' in literature below).

** And he has this drinking problem. *[[Running Gag|SPLASH]]*

* This almost happens in ''Airport 1975'', when the chief stewardess ends up flying a 747 after a mid-air collision. ''Almost'', because George Kennedy and the U.S. Air Force managed to drop [[Charlton Heston]] into the airliner's cockpit so he could land it instead.

* Can overlap with [[I Know Mortal Kombat]], if the civilian plays piloting games obsessively, a la ''[[Snakes on a Plane]]''.

* ''Turbulence''

** ''Turbulence'' lacked some of that "learning how to fly on-the-fly" magic that graced ''Airplane!'', because the 747's controls were entirely automatic. The <s>stewardess</s> flight attendant basically pressed the "Fly me to Los Angeles" button, and the "Land me" button.

*** Which the hero and the flight attendant together could figure out easily enough, he with the basic flight training could understand much of the terminology, and she who works on the plane probably at some point noticed where the pilots keep all the manuals. Presumably on the only bookshelf in the cockpit.

* In the movie ''[[It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World]]'', Ding and Benjy are forced to make one of these landings after their pilot falls unconscious after drinking too much while flying.

* The Doris Day movie ''Julie''.

 

== Live Action TV ==

 

* An episode of ''[[Walker, Texas Ranger]]'' (insert [[Memetic Badass|Chuck Norris Joke]] here).

* ''[[Magnum, P.I.]]'' did it, referencing several movies where it had occurred. Higgins is the one talking him in and, unfortunately, fails to tell him how to stop the plane once it is on the runway; causing him to crash after he's landed.

* The [[Derren Brown]] special ''Hero at 30,000 feet'' leads up to the subject (with a major fear of flying) being put on an airplane and told that the pilot had passed out. After volunteering to land the plane, he was put into a trance during which the plane was landed normally, and he was moved to a flight simulator. He landed the plane in the simulator successfully.

* In an episode of the ''[[A-Team]]'', the team takes over a plane from the bad guys, only to have Murdock blinded. Hannibal and Face land the plane, with Murdoch giving instructions.

* Mentioned on an episode of ''[[QI]]'', in which they refer to a study that showed that only one in ten American pilots of private planes could safely land a commercial airliner in simulation.

* [[The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries]]: ''The Strange Fate of Flight 608'' has all three jet pilots knocked out by some weird drug...leaving Frank and Joe Hardy to fly the plane. In a hurricane. In the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. Without any radio help, and the one semi-conscious pilot falls asleep mid-instruction. Guess who manages to crash-land in the middle of the ocean?

 

 

* The ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'' episode "Skyway Robbery" also had this plot point halfway through. After Jon, Garfield, and Odie have taken off in the rundown plane that they boarded (thanks to [[Con Man|Mr. Swi]][[Meaningful Name|ndler]]), the plane starts to have problems after the pilot bailed out, leaving the three in the dark about how to land the plane. It was fortunate that Jon was able to contact the air control tower who starts to talk them down. However, when the air control officer tells them how to work the plane, Jon doesn't know which control to use, but when said officer begins describing the controls in a way that Garfield understands (the air control officer began using food and pasta-related terms because he was having spaghetti), Garfield was able to flawlessly land the plane back on the ground again.

* Similarly, this was also used in the ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'' episode "Operation: H.O.L.I.D.A.Y.". Lizzie is forced to take the controls of the plane after Numbuh Two and Numbuh Three both became incapacitated after inadvertently taking a bite from the pie that Lizzie was going to give to Numbuh One. Numbuh One was forced to give Lizzie instructions on how to fly and land the plane. The episode even threw in this amusingly clever [[Shout-Out]] to [[Airplane!]]:

'''Lizzie''': ''[on the radio]'' '''Who is Shirley?!?!?!''' }}

* In [[Donkey Kong Country]], DK, flying in Funky's biplane as part of a [[Zany Scheme]] to undo a [[I Owe You My Life]] situation, finds himself out of control when Dixie's pet crab chews away the remote control Funky was using to steer the plane on the ground. Luckily, Cranky's hologram appears to coach DK through.

'''Cranky:''' I'm also one heckuva mirangue dancer. But this is no time to discuss my list of accomplishments! }}

 

** A similiar (or possibly the same) incident was recounted in an issue of ''Reader's Digest''.

* Current autopilots are actually designed to handle landings, making this more than plausible as long as the radio is still working so the non-pilot will know what buttons to push.

*** Heinlein had also written an [[Author Tract]] against automation of anything as complex and potentially hazardous as a garage door, stating that controls should have triple redundancy to execute and half a dozen manual overrides (though he was for giving self-aware AI's the same rights and autonomy as any other sentient being.)

** James May (of ''[[Top Gear]]'' fame) has published a book called ''How to Land an A330 Airbus'' which in the titular chapter explains to a complete novice how to land with autopilot and radio assist at an airport equipped with landing assist. The chapter has a disclaimer saying (I paraphrase) "To be used only in the event of complete buttock-clenching emergency."

[[Category:Tropes On a Plane]]

[[Category:Plots]]

[[Category:Tropes Examined by the Mythbusters]]