The crew of a Beech King Air 200 elected to ride their damaged aircraft to a safe landing in Colorado using the Garmin Autoland system after a pressurization failure, according to the company that operates the aircraft. In a statement to AvBrief released after the initial publication of this story and several failed attempts by us to contact the operator, Buffalo River Aviation CEO Chris Townsley said that as the plane climbed through 23,000 feet from Aspen on its way to Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield, less than an hour away, it suddenly depressurized. The pilots put on oxygen masks and let the Autoland system take over. The two pilots were the only occupants on a ferry flight. They remained alert for the entire episode and did not require any medical treatment after the autonomous landing. The Autoland system used the term “pilot incapacitation” in its automated radio calls to air traffic control. Below is Buffalo River’s full unedited statement.
Create an account
Welcome! Register for an account
A password will be e-mailed to you.
Password recovery
Recover your password
A password will be e-mailed to you.
Autoland is the strongest real-world argument yet for single-pilot ops.
Oops Raf. Rarely if ever have I disagreed with you, but on this one I do. Vehemently! In no way is this choice to deploy an auto land system anywhere remotely relevant to a discussion of single pilot ops vs multi pilot ops. That discussion takes place in AI driven bean counter departments devoid of real world multi pilot crew experience. You’ve overstepped your expertise on this one Raf.
Theoretically, and we don’t know enough facts here to be certain, a single pilot without the benefit of the wisdom of a second pilot might well not have arrived at the conclusion to activate auto land without the influence of the other. My response here is not an evaluation on the veracity of autoland systems or the competence of this particular crew. Rather my response informed by decades of multi pilot operations guided by sound crew resource management is that decisions made corporately by multiple brains on the flight deck most likely are and most likely always will be more sound than decisions made by one brain, with or without auto land.
Raf, I think your statement needed more context if was snark.
I have to agree with John on this one. This was an “emergency” situation. It had nothing to do with single pilot normal operation.
Agreed Raf,
I’ve flown 50 years in jet aircraft. The first 40 in multi-crew aircraft and the last 10 as single pilot in SP certified aircraft. I love SP operations and Autoland will truly make SP operations much safer as more and more SP certified aircraft come to market. Now retired, I enjoy flying a Cirrus SR-22T G7+ that has the autoland system. Keep up the great work Garmin.
I would like to know the experience level of both of these pilots. If losing pressurization was the only thing wrong with this aircraft they ran a heck of an experiment with their passengers just to see if it worked. Maybe it’s just me, but one of the primary reasons pilots get paid good money is to exercise good judgement. I see none here.
Autoland is a wonderful safety feature, but more than that are two competent pilots.
“ The two pilots were the only occupants on a ferry flight.”
The autoland activated automatically due to pressurization loss. It’s designed to do that if cabin altitude exceeds a set threshold. The crew did not activate it. The crew then chose to “let it ride”. Why they did that rather than deactivating it, and how the FAA views their decision, remains to be seen.
Maybe, just maybe, the simply wanted to see if it worked?
So two qualified medically sound pilots risked everyone’s life with autoland instead of just following the emergency procedures for depressurization and landing the airplane normally and this is somehow a good thing?! Whose fault would the accident have been if auto land failed, Garmin? Hope it’s better than Waymo.
I guess this saves a lot of money on pilot training. Anytime things get stressful just push the Autoland button. Sounds like the pilots lack of capacity that the auto land was announcing may have preceded the takeoff.
I see a lot discussion that the pilots “failed by letting Autopilot take over” in their duties. Much like side line pilots criticizing cirrus drivers for pulling the chute. I suspect they did the right thing. Why? It could have been mandated company procedure. They could have been running checklists. They could have been dealing with a medical issue with the passengers with a depressurization failure.
If you can autoland, you can autotakeoff and autonavigate to your destination. You will need neither a pilot’s license nor a medical to own and operate your own aircraft. This is coming to an airport near you, just a matter of time.
While I’m not familiar with this particular checklist for loss of cabin pressure, the ones I have seen start out, “deploy O2 masks, reset cabin pressure altitude control if appropriate, declare an emergency, brief cabin crew/pax, expedite descent to MEA or MOCA as appropriate”. Does the installation of an autoland system change this process to “don the mask, and watch what happens”? Of course, its been a long time ago, but…?
The two pilots were the only occupants. What checklists need to be run if the autoland system is engaged?
So, this wasn’t an emergency situation that required ATC to close the airspace? Seems like this was crying “wolf” when it was simply a poodle. The story now indicates this was not single-pilot as many assumed. All the more reason to wonder why.
I usually try to keep my mouth shut, but this event causes me to cringe a bit…
From what I’ve heard, the 2 pilots were the only souls on board—so no risk to passengers. But—what about everyone else involved?
The activation of the Autoland is automated in some situations (I think this is VERY good idea!), but the decision by 2 certified, trained, and deemed competent pilots to just “ride it out” was a very irresponsible act. Garmin’s own documentation clearly states “Autoland is designed to be used in emergency situations only and should not be used in nonemergency situations where the pilot is fully capable of landing the aircraft.”
The Autoland activation automatically declares an emergency by making automated radio calls to ATC declaring “pilot incapacitation” and by squawking 7700—it then announces intention and lands the aircraft….without any intervention, direction, or assistance from ATC. In essence, the activation becomes a life-critical situation that the rest of the world is forced to pause and let play out before continuing on….therein lies the rub in this instance.
If you listen to the ATC tapes from the area, this plane, once the Autoland activated, basically took over a very large swath of airspace in the Denver area. ATC had to divert attention to managing what to them was an extremely urgent issue. They had to divert other aircraft, try to figure out what airport the plane was going to utilize (I’m not real clear on just how much info the Autoland is broadcasting to ATC), arrange for an emergency landing, clear a lot of airspace “just in case”. Not only ATC, but the emergency response team at the airport (or airports???) had to activate and be prepared for an incoming emergency…..this causes a cascade of response that could reach the airport crash response, local EMS and police, and even local hospitals. Admittedly, they may only be put on alert or standby, but they all have to dedicate personnel and equipment—as well as time and attention—to what can be a very critical event. This is NOT insignificant.
And–just a brief mention of the other pilots in the area at the time—they all were able to respond with minimal muss and fuss—-but what if they couldn’t or if one of them had an over-reaction and something happened……just a thought.
I don’t know if any commercial traffic was affected—but that would be another snowball of problems if they were….
Oh, and, never forget about the general public the plane flew over while transiting to the airport and then maneuvering to descend and land. Admittedly they were at essentially no risk, but—when has that ever prevented the general public from taking up arms against ANYTHING that it perceives as unfair or causing danger in any form???
All this just to see what happens. Understandably, the company’s statement that the “crew consciously elected to preserve and use all available tools and minimize additional variables” is an obvious response to CYA…..but it does not absolve the pilots from essentially a false report.
If I call the police right now and report a life threatening situation that requires an immediate response from law enforcement, EMS, and other agencies——that is totally false—-Hmmmmmmmmmmm, I think I might wanna make my next call to a lawyer.
This event smells an awful lot like a similar call……….
I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of these pilots right now…..
As more and more facts emerge about this incident, the cynic in me has started to make little noises.
Was there really a depressurization? This plane flew the very next day. I don’t know anything about maintenance requirements following a depressurization incident in a King Air. Are a few hours enough to return this aircraft to normal service?
Could this have been a couple of pilots saying to each other, “Hey, let’s see what happens if we push that button?”
Great publicity for a little known charter operation.
Great publicity for Garmin.
I apologize if that little cynical voice in me is badly mistaken–and well it could be. But it did start making those little whispers. I wish to take nothing away from Garmin for developing an amazing system or to the charter company for installing it in some of their fleet. That’s all good. But this incident…?
I would put it that in reverse: “Single pilot ops is the strongest real-world argument for autoland.” However, it’s potential value is not diminished by the presence of two crew, if my unqualified impression of the autoland system is correct. It sounds as if the system activated automatically in response to depressurization (” The pilots put on oxygen masks and let the Autoland system take over.”). If so, such a system might have prevented the LearJet crash that killed Payne Stewart, and other similar fatal accidents. In terms of aircraft that require two or more crew, however, it does not obviate the myriad activites demanded of the crew that may occur in unusual circumstances. It’s a pity that system is out of reach for the vast majority of single pilots, i.e. general aviation.
So why didn’t the pilots take over and taxi the airplane off the runway so as to not close it down for however long it was closed. They could have taxied it all the way to the ramp and shut down thus keeping the runway open.
We’re not going to see autonomous commercial flight over land with anything having a mass of more than a few kg anytime soon. However, I am certain that those who are working so hard to promote the development of crewless aviation will be rolling this event out in their future presentations. And why not? In a real-world, operational scenario, the system performed flawlessly. To use the word “magnificently” is not an overstatement, but in times to come, it will be referred to as “routine”. Human intervention, at least within the aircraft (sorry, “platform”), was not required.
Some may not like to read this. I do not like to write it. However, the heartless truth of progress is that, right or wrong, nobody cares about the opinions of those looking backwards. Would any flight engineers care to chime in? A check-in agent, perhaps? At least there are a few agents remaining who have yet escaped progress’ scalpel.
I cannot view the entire statement. The embedded app will not allow me to scroll to view the bottom of the page. I tried downloading and all I get is a screenshot of the app.
I will let the relevant authorities and stakeholders do the analysis of this event. However, from where I sit, this offers proof of the potential value of Autoland. Had this been a much worse situation, the Autoland truly could have changed the outcome for the best. Increasing safety cannot be a bad thing even if the circumstances around this Autoland turn out to be questionable.
3rd paragraph of Chris Townsley’s statement (I’d bet an attorney read over this prior to release) sums the story up. God knows we have had our fair share of pilot incapacitated incidents with pax on board and both, system and hardware worked as planned in this case. Lets move along. Nothing and nobody to bash here.
I look forward to validation that the premise is sound, that the depressurization actually did occur.
Wait a minute! Two supposedly competent King Air Part 135 pilots with no passengers aboard opted to let AutoLand take command of their airplane after a depressurization and continued to do so even through a safe landing! Give me a break. This may have started out automatically and they may have elected to let it continue either by their combined decision OR by Company SOP but I saw two pilots getting out of the thing on the runway with the props still rotating acting like they were non-pilot passengers deplaning with their stuff. At that point, it was no longer an emergency. Why couldn’t they have shut down AutoLand and taxied off the runway. This was NOT an emergency … it was a “pan, pan, pan.” And AutoLand activation isn’t like activating a CAPS rescue … it can be DEACTIVATED!
These two knuckleheads are seriously suspect IMHO. And then I’d ask … ‘Does AutoLand preclude use of the radios — or at least one radio — when it’s in command?’ IF so, that needs to be changed. If use of a radio shuts down AutoLand, that too needs to be revisited by Garmin. And if AutoLand is activated and then deactivated, can it be again activated if necessary? Had they communicated with ATC, sanitization of a large piece of airspace wouldn’t have been required. When Garmin is demonstrating AutoLand, that action doesn’t shut down airspace.
Frankly, I think the FAA needs to step in before pilots start using this system just for fun. Ya’ll know that’ll happen now. I’m not a fan of more regulation but either a new FAR needs to be written OR better training for pilots of equipped airplanes is in order. Had I been PIC, I’d have deactivated that system once I sorted it out, communicated ‘all in control’ and headed to wherever they were going normally.
Most of us have heard some form of…”if I were there, I would have…”.
I wasn’t there. Depressurization event, maybe smoke in the cockpit, maybe the smell of burnt wiring, maybe another anomalie(s), maybe none of the above but something else, but Auto-land declares an emergency.
Now what? Every emergency starts a process of decisions that results (hopefully) in actions that produces a safe outcome for everyone now involved…including ATC, other aircraft, and first responders. Busy airspace, IMC, known icing, winds, etc. There are plenty of accidents that resulted from declaring and emergency, then changing that decision to ATC requests for radar vectoring, or “everything is fine” thinking the original mayday is no longer needed because whatever issue appears to be resolved, only to find out the issue is not resolved, and now we have declared emergency number two.
I can only imagine how much chaos would be ADDED by the dialogue between ATC and this King Air to rescind the automatic initiated Garmin Autoland emergency declaration, with subsequent ATC inquiries of redefined requests, followed with “are you sure?” to now reconfiguring all of the process for no emergency but we gotta keep an eye out for this potentially crippled airplane. This technology triggered an event that no one, this King Air crew, ATC, other aircraft has ever experienced in real time.
The tech worked, the ATC system responded perfectly, the other aircraft in the area executed their duties and assignments, responders were ready, and NO ONE GOT HURT! Now, this crew, we as fellow pilots, airlines, ATC, first responders all have now, a real experience to build on for future dialogue, dissection, and potential improvements.
I agree with the company comment letter and the crews decision to keep the Autoland engaged until the airplane came to a complete stop. This was the best win win outcome for all involved.
Something is a little fishy in this whole story.
They sure are getting a lot of press from this story. Will the NTSB be doing an investigation given there was no damage or injury?