If you were a pilot what would you do in this situation?

Question

You are cruising along at about 40,000ft and suddenly the plane goes into freefall. How long would you have until the plane hit the ground? And what would you do?

Answer 1

First, contrary to all the OWT's out there, planes dont just plummet to the ground in freefall (not when it is still in one piece) it will glide.even with no engine power.
I would trim for best glide speed, squawk 7700, hit the "nearest"(nrst) button on the GPS, ,turn towards the nearest airfield that had a runway/facility's that could accommodate me trouble shoot what ever the problem is..hell, at that altitude, you could glide a little over 100 miles. I would be confident that I could land safely.

Answer 2

This cannot happen in any practical situation, however, assume it did, in a freefall, given that the acceleration of gravity is 9.8m/s/s an object falling from 40,000 ft. would take approx 45 seconds to reach 0 ft. This assumes a few things, that the freefall began from a resting point, which it wouldn't if the airplane got to 40,000 ft. and it assumes no wind. The airplane would be delayed from this time however because the airplanes terminal velocity, (where the downward force of gravity is counteracted by the upward drag caused by the air it is cutting through at such high speeds) would be reached, this would make the fall more like one minute... That answers how long you would have. One note before part two, in order to have a freefall in an airplane you would need both wings, and the tail to fall off at the exact same time, otherwise you would have a spin which is more like what you are talking about since this can happen with all control surfaces attached and in working order. To recover you must find the ground, by looking out the window (easy) or looking at the instruments (hard). (This is what killed Kennedy). Then you use rudder, opposite the spin, this will stop the spin, then you are in nose-down decent which only requires some back-pressure on the yoke and your on your way. (possibly with an some extra baggage in your underpants but hey, your alive!)

NOTE: In a spin, you may have more or less than the one minute predicted above because if the engines are running, they will assist gravity in your acceleration, but if it is a loose spin where the airplane is not rotating on an axis, you will have considerably longer. This is because you would still have some airspeed and therefore some lift on the wings. Also, understand that an airplane descends almost never faster than 2000 ft/min under normal conditions, for a few reasons, #1 being that the pressurization systems could not keep up with a descent rate 20x the ususal descent. Most liely the airplane would implode (non-explosively) if this happened but people on the inside would be long gone by then.

Answer 3

What type of plane and where are you? If it's a commercial air liner and depending on the size of the plane, Inform the passengers about the situation and remain calm. I would try to keep the nose up and radio for a place for an emergency landing. Also i would check to see if the engines will refire and if they do, problem solved. If not and I am over water, try to land in the water by spirling down towards the water in large circles to make the plane steadier. If I am over land with no water to be found, I would try to land the plane in an unoccupied region like a desert or forest or farm. If all else fails and I cannot correct, I would hope the plane has enough emergency parachutes for the passengers and once they're all off and all crew are off, I would try to stabalize, but if that's not good, out I go save everybody on the plane. Now if I was in a military aircraft or hilo, I would do the same except if I was over land and a crash imminint, eject. Over water depending on the decent grade, hope to float the plane over water and then wait. Also if I could get the plane over land I would try to stabilize and look for a landing strip or radio in and seek help and plan either way I'd stick with the plane unless it's dire death.

Answer 4

I am a pilot and the only way that a plane would go into freefall is if a major structural portion broke off. This doesn't happen while cruising along. Assuming it did for some reason, you would have about 2 minutes to become limber enough to kiss your tushy goodbye. If I had a parachute, I would use it.

Answer 5

I am a pilot. That is an impossible scenario. Planes don't "just go into freefall", it's a physical impossibility. Even if all the engines failed at the same time you still have a big glider. It's perfectly controllable.

Answer 6

The aircraft wouldent go into a freefall without good reason as in pilot error

Answer 7

I'm going to have to disagree with everyone here. I have been working on EA-6B Prowlers for the Navy for about 6 years now and I can tell you that I am amazed every time they take off. If both engines failed on that plane, I am convinced that it would glide like a manhole cover. Just ditch it.

Answer 8

well i would bring throttle back and then try to put plane in dive to regain lift. nothing else you can really do to regain control. you would probably have no more than 1 minute and a half. it really also all depends on what actually caused the plane to suddenly free fall. if its a aerodynamic stall, you could bring plane to a pitch down attitude and regain speed and lift. if a control surface problem, like something wrong with elevators, ailerons, or horizontal stabilizer, you would have to do everything to try to fix the problem.

Answer 9

your average glide ratio for a commercial airliner is 15-1
in other words, every 15 units you go forward, you go down one.
so in this situation you could travel 600,000 ft, or 113.6 miles (assuming no wind)
basically id just try to find an airport nearby and hopefully glide in for a safe landing.
"On the 8th of August in 2001, an Air Transat Airbus 330, en route from Toronto to Lisbon, suffered two engines failures and glided for 19 minutes before making a safe emergency landing."

Answer 10

............ modern aircraft will never get into a free fall due inherent stability built in the design ............. it will fall only if there is a structure failure ........... like a wing falling off or loose elevator or rudder ....... most unlikely situation in modern jet .......... you try it in a small plane, there also the design factor comes in ............ however there is an exercise called rapid descend, in case of loss of cabin pressure aircraft has to come to below 10000 feet ASAP....... and that is a controlled rapid descend ....... and not a free fall ...