Like, they can't exactly stage a rescue mission like they can with boats and ships. I know like they might reserve a runway for it to land, but what if the elevator thing got stuck so the plane just kept rising? Is there some kind of a protocol to try and get the plane down?|||The pilot will contact ground control at the nearest suitable airport and declare an emergency. Then ground control will notify the fire department and reroute inbound or outbound flights if need be.
Almost all emergency flight procedures will tell you not to attempt to "un-jam" flight controls unless a crash is imminent. http://www.airlinesafety.com/faq/faq10.h鈥?/a>
Aircraft almost never dump fuel. Back in the 70s and 80s they used to train pilots to dump fuel for emergency landings. When the fuel tanks are empty they contain more fuel vapor which is actually more dangerous than having full tanks. The only reason that an aircraft would dump fuel would be if it was overweight for landing and had to land immediately.
If the aircraft is too far out to call anyone with UHF they will simply switch to HF. Using HF radio you can talk to an aircraft half way around the world, so range is not an issue. HF radio waves bounce off of the ionosphere and can travel quite well. You can easily call someone that is in South Carolina from Iraq with very little distortion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXOTbTlij鈥?/a>|||You're right that they can't stage a rescue mission. In the situation you mentioned, it would be up to the pilots to figure out how to control the aircraft well enough to land it. In most situations where vital controls fail, such as the elevator or rudder, the plane will crash if it's not remedied to a controllable point. So they're basically out of luck if they can't control the plane. There's a show called Air Crash Investigation, I believe it's British but it still goes through plane accidents very well and describes some situations where there was no hope for the plane.
When an emergency is declared, the airspace around the aircraft in trouble is cleared out, and the controllers do everything possible to help the pilots get down safely. When a pilot declares an emergency, they are allowed to do whatever they need to do to get the airplane down safely without fear of punishment for disobeying instructions or breaking regulations so it would be counterproductive for controllers to not accommodate the pilots.|||Just about all of the emergencies that one can think of when writing the plane's manuals are documented with checklists as to what to do. When one of those emergencies happen, the pilots follow the checklists. In the very rare case where something not documented happens, you sort of have to shoot from the hip and figure out what to do on your own.
Your example of the elevator getting stuck is actually an emergency that is documented in airliners' emergency procedures. If it's a mechanical linkage, for example, there would be two sets of cables, pullies, etc going from the yokes to the elevator tab. The elevator tab itself would be split in two. One yoke would control one half and the other would control the other. During normal flight, the two sides of the elevator are locked together so either yoke moves the entire thing. In the event that it gets stuck, there is a release handle that the pilots can pull that disconnects the two. What would happen then (in theory) is that one yoke would be stuck and the other could control the elevator half it is linked to, that is still free. Same thing for the ailerons. I'm talking about airliners here. If it's a plane that doesn't have this sort of linkage, well, you've got to control the plane with just ailerons, rudder and thrust and hope for the best.|||In flight emergencies happen a lot more often than you might think. Most of the time the plane is still completely controlable and safe to land. It is declared an emergency because a redundant system has failed and they are using the back up. Kind of like running your car on its spare tire, you don't want to do it for long, but it's fine to drive to get repaired.
In the event of a flight control failure like what you mentioned. They would try to regulate altitude by reducing airspeed. Less air over the wings would reduce lift and that would cause them to descend. It would be a close balance though between reducing elevation and flying too slow and stalling the plane out. In a stall the aircraft would no longer have enough air over the wing to fly and would fall like a rock.|||Declaring an emergency is an administrative procedure. Dealing with an emergency is operational action. In other words, they are actually two different things.
If a serious situation develops on an aircraft, pilots will go through checklists designed to deal with the emergency. Most emergencies have some sort of checklists for at least part of the problem that causes the emergency. If there is no checklist, pilots use judgment gained from experience to improvise.
Most emergencies are not matters of life or death, and very few emergencies lend themselves to any type of rescue effort (despite what you see in the movies).
As for declaring an emergency, the main purpose of that is to get others out of your way. When a pilot declares an emergency, the sky is his. He no longer has to follow ATC instructions; instead, he tells ATC what he plans to do, and ATC clears a path for him. Other aircraft steer well clear of the aircraft in trouble, either on instructions from ATC, or simply out of a desire to make things easier for the aircraft in trouble.
Pilots and air traffic controllers treat emergencies with the gravest seriousness, and declaring an emergency sets many people and resources in motion to make sure that an airplane in trouble can land safely. Skies are cleared, runways are made available, fire and rescue equipment is mobilized, search and rescue teams are alerted. The pilots of the aircraft in trouble are given complete freedom to work on the problem and choose the best course of action, and everyone else follows. It is quite impressive to observe how much everyone works together to save an airplane in trouble.
A pilot declaring an emergency is always given the benefit of the doubt. Nobody questions whether he has a good reason or not to declare an emergency. If the pilot feels he needs to declare, then he does so. There will be plenty of time to analyze his actions later on, but until he's safely on the ground, he does what he wants, and everyone assumes that he has a good reason to declare an emergency.
As I've already indicated, a lot of the time, there isn't anything that anyone else can do. It's up to the pilot(s) to figure things out. At best, maybe a fighter jet could pull alongside and inspect the outside of the airplane (if the gear doesn't seem to be lowering correctly, for example), but ultimately the pilot is alone. That's why nobody second-guesses him and everyone tries to help.
Of course, sailors work together like this, too鈥攖hey certainly try to help their fellow seamen in trouble. But you can actually get to a ship and rescue people, whereas that's pretty much impossible with airplanes. So it's all the more important with airplanes to bend over backwards to help a pilot in any way you can. And of course every other pilot is thinking to himself that it could have just as easily been himself in trouble.|||the pilot declares the emergency along with the time and location...so if anythin went wrong...the authorities know where to look...
the pilot contacts the ATC and tells the emergency...depending upon the kind of emergency...the ATC will respond...
eg...if they have fuel leak...the ATC will give them directions for the nearest airport
in case of power failure...the ATC will give them directions and reserve airport runways
if the elevator gets stuck...the pilots first try to troubleshoot themselves....if it doesnot work...they contact the airline maintenance department...they they together will tr to troubleshoot
if still if continues....if anythin goes wxtremely wrong...then they declare emergency....
the ATC calls give them directions....frequencies for diffrent maintenance crews and all...|||Everybody gets the hell out of their way...LOL|||The W. Bush administration dispatched fighter jets for this purpose. If they were not in communication, or did not get away from restricted air space, the orders were to shoot them down. This is because they didn't want the plane to be used as a weapon and kill far more people (example: 911 attack).
Sometimes fighter jets will escort a plane safely to the ground.
If a plane is near the water they will advise it to dump its fuel before landing (so that it doesn't explode). They might also advise it to land on the ocean if it is injured (to keep it from making an emergency on a busy tarmac.
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