http://goo.gl/Ivk7v
Bwaaah that's about airliners. This is a g/a forum, remember?
That's true, but GA a/c often have cabin crew as well. In my own experience c/crew (and pax, before the post-9/11 restrictions for cockpit 'visits') have occasionally taken control, both in GA and commercial airline ops. Many have private pilots' licences with the aim of a career in commercial aviation; some don't, of course.
Two Air India pilots put the lives of 166 passengers on a Bangkok-Delhi flight in danger by taking a 40-minute break from the cockpit and getting two flight attendants to operate the plane in their absence. Their stunt almost ended in disaster after one of the flight attendants accidentally turned off the auto-pilot, forcing the pilots to rush back to their seats.
That is almost very funny...
How completely mad.
It's hard to know what that sort of thing tells us about the culture in which both pilots think that is an OK thing to do. I assume they both had gold plated JAA ATPLs, with the 14 exams done in a UK FTO 
I do sometimes wonder what would happen if one fell asleep on autopilot. The plane would obviously fly on, non-radio, and presumably (depending on how far and where) you would get intercepted. But on a VFR (OCAS) flight it's quite likely nobody would care; certainly that would be the UK situation. Eventually one would run out of fuel or hit some terrain, or perhaps the autopilot would disconnect due to the fuel imbalance and then you would promptly crash.
Out of interest, can an airliner be hand flown in all normal phases of flight? I know some bizjets mandate the use of the AP above some altitudes, due to pitch control issues.
> Out of interest, can an airliner be hand flown in all normal phases of flight?
Sure - 737/757/767 for certain, and in my experience, very often was.
[quote fixed up - Peter]
I do sometimes wonder what would happen if one fell asleep on autopilot.
GA airplanes would fly the programmed path and then continue on the last heading until fuel starvation.
Commercial aircraft with an FMS would typically fly to the IAP and enter the hold until fuel starvation. There was an incident some years ago where the crew fell unconscious due to decompression and eventually crashed after running out of fuel in the holding.
A kitchen oven-timer, set for a 30 min. alarm, was an essential piece of kit for 2-crew night-flying on long sectors.
One couldn't rely on the cabin crew's regular visits to the c'pit. On one occasion, 3 hours into a night flight, co-pilot went back to the galley (707) and no cabin-crew in evidence on the a/c. They were eventually found asleep in the pax cabin baggage lockers....
and then continue on the last heading until fuel starvation
Not sure that is always true.
If I am in NAV mode, upon exhaustion of the programmed route the AP will switch to ROL mode (wings level) and continue wings-level i.e. not fly any previous heading. So it would probably fly some kind of slow arc, laterally.
There was an incident some years ago where the crew fell unconscious due to decompression and eventually crashed after running out of fuel in the holding.
The one you are thinking of is probably the Cypriot 737 crash in Greece. That was one of the "classic" ones. I understand that a lot of pilots privately changed their oxygen mask checking procedure after that, taking more than just the one prescribed sniff to make sure the valve on the cylinder is actually open. I don't know if that actual flight had the valve shut but it was found that one would get a "pass" on the mask even if the valve was shut, so long as you were the first person to do the test after the valve got shut.
Seems I should have made it clearer my protest was not to be taken serious. Why don't we have emoticons here? As for falling asleep or unconscious while the auto-pilot is active: ISTR a couple of accidents like that in the US? A LearJet that flew across half the continent in one straight line, until the fuel ran out?
I wonder what the two pilots expected the cabin crew to do if ATC called them? Were they to recognise their call sign and quickly go find the pilots???
