Hero pilot lands plane full of tourists

News & Politics
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Amazing footage shows how the pilot’s brave actions saved the lives of those on board as he brings the Airbus A320 safely into land

A hero pilot has landed a plane full of 127 tourists “blind” after giant hailstones severely damaged the plane’s nose and cockpit cracking the aircraft’s windscreen.

Amazing footage shows how the pilot’s brave actions saved the lives of those on board as he brings the Airbus A320 safely into land at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport .

The huge jet has suffered several external damage after being pelted with giant hailstones while it was mid-flight during a massive thunder storm.

Passengers can be heard passengers crying and praying as the stricken plane judders to the ground.

A voice on the ground is heard saying: “He won’t do it, he won’t do it.”

http://i3.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article10904654.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/PAY-Inside-the-cockpit-of-damaged-plane_Facebook_east2west.jpg
The windscreen was cracked in the freak storm and the pilot was forced to land the jet “blind” (Image: social media / east2west)
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The plane suffered severe damage (Image: social media / east2west news)
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Capt Akopov has been hailed a hero (Image: TSN / east2west news)
Capt Akopov said the plane was hit by hailstones “as big as hen’s eggs”, which left a huge gash in the jet and disabled the autopilot.

He and other crew were celebrating as if it was a “second birthday” after they brought the plane down safely.

Capt Akopov said: “I have been flying for 30 years. Well, did you see the plane landing? Was it okay? The passengers are alive. It is normal.

“This is our professional reliability. Our locator did not show this weather disaster, this is why it happened.

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Terrified passengers desperately cling on (Image: YouTube / east2west)
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Plane on terrifying approach (Image: YouTube / east2west)
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The plane as it came safely in to land (Image: YouTube / east2west)
“It was hard, but the main thing is that people are alive.”

The catastrophe hit 10 minutes after the Atlasglobal plane took off to Erkan in Northern Cyprus.

Having climbed to 1,300 meters, the hailstones cracked the cockpit windows preventing the pilot from seeing his approach to land.

The captain was permitted to try and land at Ataturk airport even though it had been closed due to the atrocious weather.

A full-scale emergency was in place with fire appliances and ambulances awaiting the plane.

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The airport erupted into applause when the pilot brought the plane down (Image: social media / east2west news)
A video shows a woman with red nails gripping a seat because of the plane’s extreme shaking during the landing.

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko called the captain to congratulate him and awarded him with the Ukrainian Order of Courage.

Aviation experts also praised the two Turkisk cabin crew for their bravery and people waiting in the airport broke out in applause when the jet landed safely.

The pilots of other planes greeted the plane by flashing lights and came aboard to shake the pilots’ hands.

Hailstones the size of golf balls and heavy rain battered Istanbul on Thursday in a freak storm that flooded roads, felled trees and brought air traffic and rush hour transport to a standstill in Turkey’s biggest city.

At least two people were injured in the storm, the Daily Sabah newspaper reported.

Source: http://www.aviationfigure.com/hero-pilot-lands-plane-full-tourists-blind-hailstones-crack-windscreen-severely-damage-jet/

Footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1Wp8LTJN6Y

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incredible but also not that hard for a commercial jet …when a flight is on the final leg of approach pilots use 80% of instruments,they just need the visual to counter check the plane is on the right course.

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These planes can fucking land themselves if you let them…

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:D:D:D:D:D
moshi ni fyam ukitumia sana

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si moshi msee…there is this this thing called ils-instrument landing system- used as a localizer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system

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Si useme ulisahau kuitoa? :slight_smile:

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hukupata context comment ya @nairobilay inasound ndom…

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:Dwapi rink

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That vision is what he was lacking given that the windscreen had been cracked.

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they land planes even with zero visibility

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqyBJm65ofc

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BS…for planes to land themselves, the weather conditions need to be extremely calm especially as far as crosswinds are concerned. There’s no way a plane can autoland in a storm, let alone a giant hailstorm

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thtas where then the ATC comes in

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very wrong sir…take your time and understand the meaning of ils landing instrument

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But the weather needs to be calm

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nop

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C&P
I can answer from my experience as an Airbus 320 Captain, but procedures differ both by airline and by aircraft type.

To answer one of your questions directly, no, they are not used often. I personally have used it for about 10-20 landings total in the 10 years I’ve been flying the A320. I don’t know a single pilot who would prefer to perform an autoland to landing his/herself. What’s more, the autoland system tends to land more “firmly” than a pilot can. Don’t get me wrong – the system works extremely well, it just doesn’t land softly most of the time.

When I do use it (and in my experience this is true of my colleagues as well), it’s because I’m required to due to low visibility, and in those situtations I’m very happy I have it. Visibility is essentially the only factor (i.e. not snow, rain, wind, etc) that drives the decision to autoland. In fact, other than visibility, there are more restrictions with respect to an autoland than there are for a manual landing. For example, the runway must not be contaminated by snow or standing water, and the maximum crosswind allowed is significantly lower.

All that said, the statement that “The only case where an ‘Auto Land’ feature would have any value is one where there is no qualified pilot to land the plane” is incorrect. Autoland has great value in that it allows aircraft to land in visibility that is too low to land manually (fog, generally), and as such gets a good bit of usage at major airports on foggy mornings. It’s also technically correct, but misleading to say that it’s “against the rules to land when visibility is below certain limits.” Again, this varies by airline and aircraft, but at my airline we are certified to autoland all the way down to 600 feet RVR (essentially visibility down the runway), but that figure is derived more from the ability to safely taxi after landing than it is for the landing itself. In fact, we have no requirement to see the runway environment during the landing. At 100 feet above the runway (called an “Alert Height”) we do a last assessment that our systems are working normally, and then continue to the landing if they are. For a manual landing, the rule is complex, but essentially we need to have 1/2 mile of visibility. So any time the visibility is between 1/2 mile and 600 feet, we’re able to land automatically when we otherwise couldn’t have.

Back to the original question though – if you’re a passenger, you’ve just landed, and you’re wondering whether the landing was performed by the autopilot, it probably wasn’t unless it’s very foggy outside.

https://www.quora.com/How-often-are-airliners-landed-using-autopilot

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Kwani hamjasoma? the autopilot was disabled.
I also dont believe you can sit back and let a plane land by itself. They were climbing when the accident happened. even it they had the autopilot. Even if they had the instruments, so they could have just let autopilot turn, configure the plane for approach and let it land itself?

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Is this the one that was calibrated in Die Hard to make the pilots think they are 1000 feet above ground while in the real sense they were at 800, causing the plane to crash?

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they are talking about the runway not the climate…its just that its essential to use it in a fine weather

we are talking about ils…ils controls the plane from the airport runway beams
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movies aside