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Garmin Emergency Autoland Has First Save (avbrief.com) 39

Posted by BeauHD from the perfectly-executed dept.
"Garmin's Collier Trophy award-winning Autonomi emergency Autoland, a system designed to safely land an aircraft in the event of pilot incapacitation, made its first real-world use and save on Saturday," writes Slashdot reader slipped_bit. AvBrief.com reports: Social media posts from flight tracking hobbyists reported a King Air 200 squawked 7700 about 2 p.m. local time today. The Autoland system was initiated and landed the aircraft at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport near Denver. A recording from LiveATC's feed of the airport's tower frequency includes a robotic female voice declaring a pilot incapacitation and the intention to land on Runway 30. The aircraft landed successfully and there have been no reports of injuries. The nature of the incapacitation and the condition of the pilot have not been released. VASAviation put together this nice animation of the event [here].

The aircraft, N479BR, was being operated by Buffalo River Outfitters from Aspen to Rocky Mountain Metropolitan. It's not clear how many people were on board. The system appeared to work flawlessly, and the controller at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan seemed to take it in stride, accommodating as many requests as he could before shutting down the airport for the landing.

Garmin Emergency Autoland Has First Save More | Reply

Garmin Emergency Autoland Has First Save

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  • That link just jumps to LiveATC. It doesn't resolve to the recording.

  • Its voice sounds like automated robotic voices from 30 years ago, which in itself is actually good .. EXCEPT it didn't properly pause between words. They need to update it so it pauses correctly between words. Robotic voice is useful though.

    • They need to do no such thing. All required information was correctly and clearly annunciate, the robot was far clearer than some of the other communication on the recording at the time.

  • What is special about this "Autoland"? Is it designed for small personal planes?

    Commercial airliners have had this ability for quite a while, haven't they?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      A King Air 200 generally retails for $1-3 million dollars, so most of the time they wouldn't be 'personal planes', and while they generally only seat 6-9 plus a crew of 3 they're only 'small' when compared to something like an Airbus.

      • or to the point, the King Air 200's certification does not require a copilot. Pilot incapacitated, you're hosed. I guess it makes sense this technology would start near the upper end of single-pilot aircraft.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cusco ( 717999 )

          Didn't realize that they were single-pilot certified.

          Our niece installs Garmin stuff, and I asked her if she put these in. She said yes, and that, "This type of thing is super expensive." Guess it makes sense for a million dollar plane, though.

          • Installing these must be seriously complicated, touching or controlling all the main operations of the plane.

    • Re:The article is missing some info (Score:5, Informative)

      by ibpooks ( 127372 ) on Tuesday December 23, 2025 @12:32AM (#65876675) Homepage

      What you're thinking of in commercial airliners is something called a category 3 ILS / Autoland, which is where the autopilot can follow a radio beacon to the runway and in some cases, land itself. However it requires a significant amount of knowledge and set-up from the pilots, all sorts of special training and only works at very major commercial airports. Further, the pilots still have to do most of the pre-landing operations like adjusting speed, flaps settings, gear down, lights, etc.

      The Garmin Autoland system is much more automated. It is literally just a big red Autoland button that either a pilot or passenger could push. Once pressed, the system takes full control of plane, selects the landing site, plots the course, flies the approach, makes emergency announcements to both ATC and to the passengers onboard, fully configures the plane for landing, lands and applies brakes to stop on the runway. It can operate at any airport that has GPS approach options, which is thousands more runways than could accept an airliner cat 3 autoland.

      It is a pretty big leap forward in aviation tech.

      • Awesome, thank you!

        You'd think that info could be in the story or the summary...

      • As a hobbyist playing around with flight simulators (my eyesight sucks such that I probably could get a PPL) I find this thing amazing. This is a huge jump for aviation safety. If you watch the video, the voice is intentionally robotic so there is no chance that the air traffic controller (or anyone else) thinks it's a real pilot. Then it selected a runway, selected an approach, flew the thing, and even did a couple of published holds.
        • You don't need a medical for the Light Sport rating....except, you can't get it if you TRIED for a medical and failed.
          • Maybe not the smartest thing, to go flying when you know you have a condition that prevents you from passing a medical.
            • Personal judgment. You can certainly take lessons.
            • Well it's not like the predictive power of a physical exam is all that great. So you might be looking at a big impact on your lifestyle or career based on a false or small increase in risk (you tell yourself).

              I know in military aviation there are games people play to avoid getting kicked off the flight line.

            • You'll actually find a large majority of actually risky activities in the world rely on self assessments. Many people don't have conditions *until* they have a medical voluntary or otherwise.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by yo303 ( 558777 )

        Thanks for the precise tech info; it's why we appreciate Slashdot.

        It would be good if a controller (or pilot) could instruct Autoland to circle or choose another airport. Probably feasible with voice recognition. It's awesome that it has a deliberate robotic voice.

        Good news coverage here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

        • It would be neither simple to implement nor useful. In case of pilot incapacitation the aircraft needs to land ASAP anyway and no airport would send away an aircraft that has declared emergency.

          • It would be extremely useful. As it is, the autolander says it IS going to land on runway X in Y minutes.

            Maybe it's not a HUGE deal 99.99% of the time. But if there just so happens to be a separate emergency on runway X with no way to tell the autolander to use runway Z instead it will just plow through the already existing emergency compounding both emergencies.

            Seems pretty god damn useful to me... especially so since a lot of the checklists in aviation are to account for weird "doesn't happen often, but

            • The way the system works, it already deprioritises large air fields where the chance of having a second emergency is nonzero. Moreover more recent versions of the software can read NOTAMs, hence they will not choose an airfield that is closed.

      • It can also be initiated without the big red button, like is suspected in this case. If the pilot hasn't interacted with the avionics for a certain amount of time it will prompt the pilot, and if there is no response it will assume the pilot has become incapacitated.

        I do have a couple of questions, though. Did it see a sudden drop of cabin pressure and initiate the prompt to the pilot? Or did it just time out and then initiate the prompt?

        The flight was at about FL220 before a sudden drop to FL180. Was t

        • No, pilots generally do not do that. At 22,000 feet you have time to get out the oxygen if the pressurization fails. (2) Whenever a pressurized aircraft is operated at altitudes above 25,000 feet through 35,000 feet MSL, unless each pilot has an approved quick-donning type oxygen maskâ" (i) At least one pilot at the controls shall wear, secured and sealed, an oxygen mask that either supplies oxygen at all times or automatically supplies oxygen whenever the cabin pressure altitude exceeds 12,000 feet

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      What is special about this "Autoland"? Is it designed for small personal planes?

      Commercial airliners have had this ability for quite a while, haven't they?

      Some commercial airliners have the ability to do a Category IIIA approach, which is a way for the plane to guide itself down to the runway surface. It's almost like autoland, except it only gets you onto the runway - the pilot is still needed to handle the aircraft on the ground - i.e. it's the pilot responsibility to bring the aircraft to a halt.

      But this

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        During demonstrations, the landing has been described as "rough, but passable" so it's not going to win any awards for smoothness, but you'll be on the ground.

        There are other videos showing the system being tested.

        So about like every other autoland — right on the runway marker, hard enough to break teeth.

  • Neither occupant required medical attention. (Score:3)

    by robbak ( 775424 ) on Tuesday December 23, 2025 @03:59AM (#65876861) Homepage

    > neither of the men on the plane required treatment or transport to a hospital.

    This is interesting, and I hope that this wasn't some people doing an unauthorized test. But if they did have a hypoxic episode, they would have come to on the way down, and it probably would have been wise to allow the plane to do its thing, under supervision.

    • They're definitely in promo mode, they sent a couple guys to Jay Leno's Garage a few months ago to do a video on it.

  • This is absolutely amazing tech and congrats on the first save! That said, this could have ended badly. The robot would ignore the tower telling the plane to go around. It would ignore a big X on the runway and a bunch of workers repainting the lines. I think the next step is a way for ATC to send data to the plane directing it to a preferred airport and/or runway.
    • More: What if the plane was landing at a non-tower or part time tower airport after hours? Someone not listening to the radio, and radios are not required at non-tower airports, could get quite the surprise! Does it at least look at ADS-B to see if someone is in the way? Not that all planes have that, but it would be better than nothing. * imagining some comical radio traffic at Cletus's Airport and Auto Salvage Yard: Robot: I am landing on runway 09 Cessna N123: No you ain't! Imma set to take off on 27 dag

      • All pilots should be listening to Guard, CTAF, and UNICOM frequencies, in addition to whatever ATC tells them to use to communicate with the tower.

        If the autoland software is broadcasting its plans on those channels, it's almost impossible for another pilot to not know what's going on.

        There's always a chance that a nearby aircraft could have radio problems, but the pilot of that plane should be exercising extreme caution. And you're supposed to set your transponder to a special value during radio failure, s

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by brunes69 ( 86786 )

      Are you making assumptions or do you know this for a fact?

      • Say 99.5% sure. I am a pilot and have followed this project with interest for some time. I never have read anything that even hints at the system taking input from the ground or having some kind of synthetic vision to look out for obstacles.

        • I'd say they've thought about as many scenarios as possible and have run the numbers. Remember, this isn't going to be an everyday thing -- it's for emergencies only. This is the first use of the system in the ~6 years that it's been available (although it's only been available on the King Air for a year or two.)

          Your argument sounds like the one people have for not wearing seat belts. "But what if there's a crash and the car is burning and I'm trapped an can't release the seatbelt?" Could that happen?

          • Not really. It is really cool, the other outcome is a totally unguided airplane landing on any random thing including your house or my airplane. I am thinking through things that might go wrong and how the product could be improved. A logical next step is data link with the ground to send the airplane to a desired runway and away from one that is not suitable for one reason or another.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by maird ( 699535 )
              For the majority of cases that could occur that only requires a way for the system to be updated with active "notices to airmen" (NOTAMs) before flight. A closed runway is (other than for cases like this landing itself) a planned event and commonly announced in advance via NOTAMs. So, during pre-flight, plug the system into your cellphone via USB and press the "NOTAM update" button and it should be aware of all practical runway closures en-route. That's likely to leave the cases where a runway chosen by the

    • If the plane was going to land on a runway with problems, it would have been making announcements on the radio for many minutes, so there would be lots of opportunities to avoid disaster.

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