Garmin Emergency Autoland Flight Trial

Yes, they can. It'll cost more than the C152 is worth, but Garmin has a "press button to land plane" emergency feature recently approved by the FAA. It'll even announce itself to the relevant air traffic control frequencies. link > Simultaneously, Autoland analyzes terrain, weather, and nearby airports to determine the optimal airport for landing given the specific aircraft's available fuel and performance characteristics, winds, runway length, and a host of other factors. As the airplane descends, Autoland controls speed, altitude and flight path and manages throttles, flaps, cabin pressurization, and more. > Air traffic controllers are informed of the system's landing destination choice and clear traffic as they would with a human-flown emergency. On final approach, Autoland lowers the gear, flares the airplane, and brings it to a stop with automatic braking. Audible instructions for exiting the airplane then play. The real-life demo is pretty impressive: ▶ this video

This is Garman SafeReturn, and this is its first real save. Here's a demo.[1] It's been shipping since about 2020, originally on the Cirrus Vision Jet. There's a lot going on. The system is aware of terrain, weather, and fuel, but not of runway status. So it gives the ground a few minutes to get ready, sending voice emergency messages to ATC. If you watch the flight track, you can see the aircraft circle several times, some distance from the airport, then do a straight-in approach. It sets up for landing, wheels down, flaps down, lands, brakes, and turns of the the engine. It doesn't taxi. Someone from the ground will have to tow or taxi the aircraft off the runway. It's mostly GPS driven, plus a radar altimeter for landing. The system can be triggered by a button in the cockpit, a button in the passenger area, and a system that detects the pilot isn't making any inputs for a long period or the aircraft is unstable and the pilot isn't trying to stabilize it. The pilot can take control back, but if they don't, the airplane will be automatically landed. [1] ▶ this video

> There are no aircraft autopilots which can be used for a fully hands-off landing There's no certificated 3C approaches or equipment, but category 3B autopilots will arm at DH, and then continue all the way down and flare and land. For that matter, there's all the emergency landing autopilots showing up in turboprops now. Push a button and wait to be on the ground. ▶ this video

Autoland has been a (mostly emergency) feature for years link It might have been installed on the plane ▶ this video link

If you haven't seen it, Garmin has an emergency automatic landing system that's installed in a few planes already: link Limitations: link Video: ▶ this video

There's already a system that does the whole job of flying, for emergency use only - Garmin Safe Return.[1] In the plane, there's one big red button. If pushed, the plane finds an airport and lands, all by itself. It picks the nearest suitable destination airport, using info about fuel state, weather, and airport status. It starts squawking with the emergency transponder code. It plays emergency messages to ATC. There's also pilot incapacitation detection. If the pilot doesn't do anything for a long time, the system sounds warnings, then takes over. Everybody else has to get out of the way, though, when it declares an emergency. It can't really communicate with ATC. So it's strictly an emergency system, for now. This is really just integrated control of the existing avionics. The existing systems are good enough that you can input waypoints and have them followed, and do an automatic instrument landing on a designated runway. This mostly sets up a flight path. It can't deal with traffic. There are no new sensors. The additional hardware just lets it lower the landing gear, apply the wheel brakes, and shut down the aircraft after landing. After which you're blocking the runway until someone comes out and moves the aircraft. Again, emergency use only. It's intended for the "sick pilot, healthy airplane" case - the pilot is out of action, but the hardware is fine. It's not helpful in making hard decisions when the aircraft is having problems. [1] ▶ this video