Airplane lands itself after in-flight emergency, in a first for aviation automation | CNN
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An airplane has, for the first time, automatically landed itself after an in-flight emergency, according to the system’s manufacturer.

An airplane has, for the first time, automatically landed itself after an in-flight emergency, according to the system’s manufacturer.

Two people emerged unscathed from the Beechcraft Super King Air 200 after it stopped on the runway at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport near Denver, according to video posted by emergency responders.

The twin-engine turboprop landed under the control of Garmin’s Autoland system, which the company says is now installed on about 1,700 airplanes. “This was the first use of Autoland from start-to-finish in an actual emergency,” Garmin said in a statement.

  • UnrepentantAlgebra@lemmy.world
    3·
    1 day ago

    Non-emergency autoland like you describe had been around for a long time. But you have to manually pick your flight plan and approach, and at least point the aircraft in the general direction of the flight plan so that the AP will engage and handle the rest.

    This is a totally different beast because the emergency autoland picked the route and approach, managed the AFCS and comms, and then did the normal autoland stuff after all that. Garmin’s emergency autoland only came out a few years ago.