Could you land a plane in an emergency? 40% of young men say yes, poll finds

The next time you fly, take a look at your seatmates. There's a good chance that one of them believes they can successfully pilot the plane, according to new polling.
In the latest Cygnal survey, 25% of respondents said they think they could safely land a large passenger plane if something happened to the pilot — a finding that may strike some as comforting, and others as concerning.
However, the majority, 66%, said they do not think they could steer the aircraft to safety in this scenario.
That said, responses varied significantly based on gender, age and partisan affiliation.
In a sign of high-flying confidence, 36% of men believed they could land a large plane in an emergency, and 40% of men under age 55 said the same.
By comparison, just 16% of women — and 23% of women under 55 — trusted themselves to land a large aircraft.
When broken down by partisan affiliation, 30% of Republicans said they think they could touch down an aircraft without harm, while 20% of Democrats said the same. Independents fell in the middle, with 25% expressing confidence in themselves to land a plane.
The poll sampled 1,500 Americans June 3-4 and has a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.
The findings are similar to those from a 2023 YouGov survey of 20,063 U.S. adults, which found 32% of respondents were very or somewhat confident they could 'safely land a passenger airplane in an emergency situation, relying only on the assistance of air traffic control.'
Here, again, men were far more assured of their abilities than woman. Nearly half of men, 46%, said they were confident they could land the plane, while 20% of women said the same.
Despite the widespread belief that untrained professionals can fly planes in an emergency, aviation experts have doubts.
Writing in The Conversation, five aviation experts argued that flying large aircraft is much harder than steering small planes and that landing is one of the most difficult tasks to perform.
'Both takeoff and landing are far too quick, technical and concentration-intensive for an untrained person to pull off,' the authors wrote in 2023. 'They also require a range of skills that are only gained through extensive training, such as understanding the information presented on different gauges, and being able to coordinate one's hands and feet in a certain way.'
Speaking to The Washington Post the same year, some pilots were more definitive in their assessment.
'There is a zero percent chance of someone pulling that off,' Patrick Smith, a commercial air pilot, told the outlet, referring to the possibility of an untrained individual landing a plane. 'Do people think they can perform transplant surgery? No. Then why do they think they can land a plane?'
Echoing this sentiment, Brett Venhuizen, the chair of the aviation department at the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences at the University of North Dakota, told the outlet, 'I think they would have a very difficult time.'

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Buzz Feed

5 hours ago

• Buzz Feed

What A.M. And P.M. Actually Stand For May Surprise You

Americans use many abbreviations in everyday speech and writing. Shorthands like 'yd' for yard and 'a/c' for air conditioning are pretty straightforward, but there are some misconceptions about others. For example, take 'a.m.' and 'p.m.' People in the US are constantly thinking and talking about time in terms of a.m. and p.m., but if you ask someone what those letters stand for, you may be surprised how little people actually know about the abbreviations. Some say it's 'after midnight' or 'past midday,' but that isn't exactly true... In fact, like many words and phrases in the English language, a.m. is short for a Latin phrase, 'ante meridiem' (or 'before midday'), while p.m. is short for 'post meridiem' (or 'after midday'). While there isn't a ton of information out there about when exactly a.m. and p.m. came into popular use in the English language, the 12-hour timekeeping system dates back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. During the Renaissance period, mechanical clocks with 12-hour analog dials appeared in churches and palaces throughout Europe. Today, most of the world uses a 24-hour system, while many English-speaking countries follow the 12-hour clock. In the places that use the 12-hour standard, there is some debate around what to use for noon and midnight. By convention, people in the US say 12 p.m. in reference to noon and 12 a.m. for midnight. But some believe that going from 11 p.m. to 12 a.m. and from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. is confusing. Others would argue that noon and midnight are neither a.m. nor p.m. since noon IS midday, it can't technically be ante meridiem or post meridiem midday. Likewise, midnight is both 12 hours before midday and 12 hours after midday, which makes it confusing to choose between a.m. or p.m. To avoid this confusion, many prefer '12 midnight' or '12 noon,' but that can seem a bit redundant, given that 'noon' or 'midnight' alone convey the same information. A lesser-known option is to denote noon with 'm' for 'meridiem,' as in 12 m ― though you run the risk of people interpreting that as '12 midnight.' Given all the confusion and debate, maybe we should go with the 24-hour military time and be done with it? After all, who doesn't love staying up late on Dec. 31 to shout 'Happy New Year!' at zero hundred hours? (Or is it twenty-four hundred hours?)

Boston Globe

a day ago

• Boston Globe

The Battle of Bunker Hill rages again -- in Gloucester

Spectators also will be able to interact with the military reenactors, as well as hundreds of 'civilian' interpreters who will depict the hardships of everyday life in the besieged town of Boston at the time of the battle. Organizers chose The spectators 'will get a very good look at what Advertisement Narrators using a sound system will describe the events in context for the audience as they unfold. A slightly compressed version of the reenactment will be staged Sunday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. 'We'll follow the script of what already happened historically,' said Dietzel, 37, of Bridgewater. 'We have people coming from all over the country, a few coming from Canada, and a few British coming from the UK' to portray the combatants. Advertisement Although Bunker Hill technically was a British victory, the Colonial troops inflicted massive casualties on the British, who were forced to mount three assaults on the Americans' hilltop fortifications before the rebels ran out of ammunition and retreated. The British lost 1,054 killed and wounded in the battle, the first pitched conflict of the American Revolution. The Colonials suffered 450 casualties, but gained the morale-boosting confidence that they could stand and fight a disciplined army with superior numbers. 'Reenactments make history come alive in a way that you don't really get from the textbooks,' said Annie Harris, chief executive officer of the Essex National Heritage Area, one of the event's organizers. 'It was a more significant battle than many of us realize,' Harris said. 'You think about the Battle of Bunker Hill, and you see the obelisk [in Charlestown], and you don't really think much about it.' The reenactment includes what Dietzel described as a series of battle vignettes interspersed throughout the day, beginning with the approach of several ships posing as troop-bearing British naval vessels toward Half Moon Beach in Gloucester beginning about 8 a.m. Saturday. From 9 to 10 a.m., the rebels will build their redoubt, or hilltop fortification, with period hand tools. Spectators are encouraged to join the soldiers as they assemble their defenses, and to learn about their 18th-century backgrounds and motivation to take up arms against the British. From 10 to 11 a.m., British reenactors will land on Half Moon Beach. From about 1 to 2 p.m., they are scheduled to make a flanking attack on Cressy Beach. British commanders ordered this flanking move as their marines made a frontal assault on the redoubt. Advertisement The coordinated attacks were unsuccessful, as was a following frontal assault. Only on the third assault, which will be staged about 4 p.m. Saturday, did the British break through and claim victory atop Breed's Hill, the Charlestown summit where the battle actually occurred. 'If we wanted to keep this exactly right, we'd have to burn a city,' which the British did to Charlestown, 'but we can't do that,' Dietzel said with a chuckle. Dietzel said he feels honored to be able to portray Warren, a key Revolutionary figure whom he has researched extensively. 'I've been reading biographies, letters from the Massachusetts Historical Society, and attending lectures. I've been in the weeds with this man for quite some time,' Dietzel said. The goal of the reenactment, which has been years in the making, is to convey the relevance of the battle to 21st-century Americans. 'We want to make sure we do justice to this event and help share a story that's important to us all,' Dietzel added. 'I told my third-grade teacher I wanted to be a Minute Man. It's been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember.' Brian MacQuarrie can be reached at

Vox

a day ago

• Vox

5 reasons to be grateful for air conditioning

is a senior editorial director at Vox overseeing the climate teams and the Unexplainable and The Gray Area podcasts. He is also the editor of Vox's Future Perfect section and writes the Good News newsletter. He worked at Time magazine for 15 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia, a climate writer, and an international editor, and he wrote a book on existential risk. A You're Hot, Stay Cool sign with an AC unit and fan posted to a street light during a heat wave on 86th Street in Manhattan, New York. Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Lee Kuan Yew, the iron-willed founder of modern Singapore, was once asked what the most important invention of the 20th century was. He didn't say penicillin, which has saved over 500 million lives, or the nuclear bomb, which has shaped geopolitics like nothing before. He didn't even say TV! Instead, Lee had a simple two-word answer: 'Air conditioning.' Without air conditioning, Singapore, where temperatures regularly reach into the 90s with tropical humidity levels, would never have developed from a tiny city-state with a per-capita GDP that was a third of Western Europe's in 1960 to one of the most prosperous countries in the world. Air conditioning is as essential to the modern world as the internet itself. But like the internet, A/C gets a bad rap. Cooling already eats up 10 percent of global electricity, and demand from air conditioners is expected to triple by 2050 without tougher energy efficiency standards. Many units still use refrigerant gases that produce a planetary warming effect that is thousands of times that of a similar amount of CO2. Air conditioning is also a physical manifestation of the energy gap between the rich who can afford it, and the poor who must sweat. It has enabled the development of energy-intensive cities in places where humans just shouldn't live, like Phoenix. Fundamentally, A/C is seen by some as an unnecessary luxury, a prime example of a 'harmful habit of consumption,' as Pope Francis once put it. I get the point. It seems morally wrong for so many of us to use a device that contributes about 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions — only so we can escape the effects of that warming. Related The air conditioning paradox But 'seems' is not the same as 'is.' Air conditioning has become far more than a luxury. So on this, the second day of summer, when the East Coast is about to be enveloped by a truly suffocating wave of heat and humidity, I offer five reasons why we should be grateful for air conditioning. It saves lives Heat isn't just uncomfortable. It's dangerous, killing more Americans in a typical year than any other form of extreme weather. Access to air conditioning can mean the difference between life and death. Seven hundred and thirty-nine people died in the great Chicago heat wave of 1995, but having a working air conditioner reduced the risk of death by 80 percent. Another study looked at cities in multiple countries between 1972 and 2009 and found that more air conditioning helped reduce excess heat deaths. As a 2021 review in the Lancet explained it, air conditioning 'is set to become the most prevalent strategy worldwide for coping with hot weather and heat extremes.' And while only about 8 percent of the 2.8 billion people living in the world's hottest regions have A/C at home, that's an argument for closing the A/C gap — not an argument against the very real value of air conditioning. It keeps us working If you struggle to concentrate when the heat and humidity is high, you're not alone. One study looked at office work and found that productivity begins to decline around 73 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit, while at 86°F, performance falls by almost 9 percent. Another study found that every 1 degree increase in average classroom temperature over a school year corresponded to a roughly 1 percent loss in students' expected learning — but installing air conditioning eliminates about three-quarters of that effect. As temperatures continue to increase, the importance of air conditioning in schools and businesses will only grow. A 2016 working paper finds that widespread adoption of air conditioning — especially by the most productive plants — substantially offsets the heat-induced drop in US manufacturing output, making cooling a critical adaptation tool. It helps us sleep The more we learn about sleep, the more important it appears to be — and keeping cool is a key part of a decent night's sleep. Humans fall asleep fastest around 64–68°F, while temperatures above 75°F cause vital deep sleep and REM sleep to crater. A 2024 review of more than 50 lab and field studies found that bedroom cooling increased total sleep time 15 to 20 minutes and cut the total amount of time people spent awake after falling asleep by a third. It's given us everything from the movies to microchips Do you like going to the movie theater to catch a summer blockbuster? Well, you can thank air conditioning — before its invention, movie attendance always dropped during the hot summer months. It's no coincidence that the first public air conditioner was installed in a cinema, New York's Rivoli Theater, in 1925. But maybe you prefer to take in your movies in the comfort of your own home? Well, producing the microchips that go into your streaming TV or smartphone requires total precision in temperature control and humidity. In short: no A/C, no microchips. It lets millions live and travel where they want Look, my negative feelings about living in red-hot metros like Phoenix are a matter of public record. But I am clearly in the minority: Americans love to live in hot places. Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located, added 1.2 million people between 2013 and 2023, more than any other county — and 96 percent of the new housing built to absorb those new residents comes with A/C. What US cities like Phoenix or Houston or Atlanta have in common with Singapore and Hong Kong is that none of them would exist as anything like they are today without the widespread use of air conditioning. Before A/C, the American South was mired in poverty, far behind the rest of the country. After A/C, the South more than caught up, and the otherwise uninhabitable Southwest became a magnet for people. If you think it's good that people can choose from a wider spectrum of places — and I do — A/C is one of the main reasons why that's possible. Air conditioning as it exists today is far from perfect. But it's also necessary, especially in an ever-warming world. What we need is not less air conditioning — unless you happen to work at an office where they keep the temperature at 60°F — but better air conditioning, with more efficient units powered by cleaner electricity. If you want to go without A/C, go right ahead (though I probably won't be visiting your house in the summer anytime soon). But either way, it should be a choice. A version of this story originally appeared in the Good News newsletter. Sign up here!