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Anemergency landing is a prematurelanding made by anaircraft in response to an emergency involving an imminent or ongoing threat to the safety and operation of the aircraft, or involving a sudden need for a passenger or crew on board to terminate the flight (such as amedical emergency). It typically involves a forced diversion to the nearest or most suitableairport orairbase, or anoff airport landing orditching if the flight cannot reach an airfield. Flights underair traffic control will be given priority over all other aircraft operations upon the declaration of the emergency.
There are several different types of emergency landings for powered aircraft: planned landing or unplanned landing.
If there is no engine power available during a forced landing, afixed-wing aircraft glides, while a rotary winged aircraft (helicopter)autorotates to the ground by trading altitude for airspeed to maintain control. Pilots often practice "simulated forced landings", in which an engine failure is simulated and the pilot has to get the aircraft on the ground safely, by selecting a landing area and then gliding the aircraft at its best gliding speed.
If there is a suitable landing spot within the aircraft's gliding or autorotation distance, an unplanned landing will often result in no injuries or significant damage to the aircraft, since powered aircraft generally use little or no power when they are landing. Light aircraft can often land safely on fields, roads, or gravel river banks (or on the water, if they are float-equipped); but medium and heavy aircraft generally require long, prepared runway surfaces because of their heavier weight and higher landing speeds.Glider pilots routinely land away from their base and so most cross-country pilots are in current practice.
Since 2003, research has been conducted on enablingunmanned aerial vehicles to perform a forced landing autonomously.[1]
Largeairliners have multiple engines and redundant systems, so forced landings are extremely rare for them, but some notable ones have occurred. A famous example is theGimli Glider, anAir CanadaBoeing 767 that ran out of fuel and glided to a safe landing inGimli, Manitoba, Canada on July 23, 1983. In June 1982,British Airways Flight 9, aBoeing 747 en route fromKuala Lumpur toPerth flew into a plume of volcanic ash and lost power in all four engines, three of which subsequently recovered, eventually diverting toJakarta. On April 28, 1988,Aloha Airlines Flight 243 experienced anexplosive decompression when approximately 35 square metres (380 ft2) of aluminium skin separated from the fuselage. The flight was successfully diverted toKahului Airport with only one casualty, flight attendant Clarabelle "C.B." Lansing who was sucked out when the cabin depressurized.[2]
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Less than a month later, another 737,TACA Flight 110, lost both engines due to bad weather but was able to make a successfuldeadstick landing on a grass levee on the grounds ofNASA'sMichoud Assembly Facility outsideNew Orleans, with minor injuries to the passengers and minor damage to the aircraft. Investigations drove the engine manufacturer,CFM International, to modify the engine design to prevent future power loss.
One year later,United Airlines Flight 811, aBoeing 747, suffered a cargo door failure in-flight, separating a section of fuselage with 9 passengers and resulted in cabin depressurization. The plane made a successful emergency landing atHonolulu International Airport.[3] More recently,Air Transat Flight 236, an Airbus A330, ran out of fuel over theAtlantic Ocean on August 24, 2001, and made a successful forced landing in theAzores. On November 1, 2011, a Boeing 767LOT Polish Airlines Flight 016 made a belly landing after a central hydraulic system failure atWarsaw, Poland'sFrederic Chopin International Airport, with no injuries.[4]
A less successful crash landing involvedSouthern Airways Flight 242 on April 4, 1977. TheDC-9 lost both of its engines due to hail and heavy rain in athunderstorm and, unable to glide to an airport, made a forced landing on a highway nearNew Hope, Georgia, United States. The plane made a hard landing and was still carrying a large amount of fuel, so it burst into flames, killing the majority of the passengers and several people on the ground.
Airliners frequently make emergency landings, and almost all of them are uneventful. However, because of their inherent uncertain nature, they can quickly become crash landings or worse. Some notable instances includeUnited Airlines Flight 232, which broke up while landing atSioux City, Iowa, United States on July 19, 1989; andAir Canada Flight 797, which burned after landing atCincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport on June 2, 1983, after a fire started in the cabin.
Shannon Airport in Ireland has a high number of emergency landings from trans-Atlantic flights, as it is the first major airport after the eastbound ocean crossing.[5][6]