We have all seen movies where the plane is going down with no pilots and the hero of the movie jumps in and miraculously without knowing how to fly and lands the plane safely saving everyone’s life.

In reality, its very rare and hard for all the contingencies fail and even harder for YOU to be the one asked suddenly to save everyone’s lives. Planes often use Automatic Piloting to handle most of the routine and mundane aspects of flying the plane. Then you add to it the presence of TWO pilots, one of whom can take over for the other in the event of an emergency or becoming physically disabled. In fact, on the same flight, the pilots are not allowed to sleep at the same time, drink at the same time, use the bathroom at the same time, or anything that would put the two of them in the SAME activity at the SAME TIME. Additionally, they never drink or eat the same things during the flight to ensure any food borne vector is mitigated by not exposing them to the same things. So as you can see, not much chance of it ever happening.

But for all who have at some point seen it or thought about it or gotten on the plane daydreaming of the possibility, here is an instructional video that should stoke your imagination. That is if you happen to be on a 737 that is 🙂