David Doubilet's Undersea Images.

Mythbusters did it with radio guidance.

That was a great episode.

So, where the hell is the HOWTO? this seems to be a good one to have these days. 1% or whatever.

It's long been observed that flying a large airliner is more like sitting at the controls of a big automated bus--do even the trained pilots have a chance of landing the thing by hand? That has not been clearly demonstrated.

A Cessna 172 is a sweet and easy thing to land. It's generous and forgiving, it's aerodynamics make it a small and stable thing to fly and to land.

I've wondered why Airlines don't allow pilot training that involves landing a jet in an emergency by manual controls. Too expensive? Too dangerous to airline assets?

It's very rare to hear of a commercial jetliner landing in an emergency done by the pilot manually, and successfully.
We all know that Airliner crashes are usually extremely fatal. WHY?
That leads us, the public, to reasonably believe a rescue landing can't be done.
So are the physics of landing a big plane impossible to teach or do, or is it simply training decisions made my corporations that prevent pilots from knowing how to handle that situation? Cheaper to pay the body insurance than train the pilots? I apologize, not trying to be rude, but that is my concern.

We all know, in most dire situations, the commercial jet and all it's passengers will be lost. That doesn't make me feel too good about Commercial Airliners, anywhere.
I've always wondered if Airlines could train pilots with disposable jets, teach them to deal with dire situations. Let them crash as many planes as they need to learn how to handle a disaster with survival of the most lives.

It'd be an expensive training, but it could save so many lives in an emergency.

Sincerely,
T. Benson

Mythbusters did an episode on this, its surprisingly feasible.

@ T Benson

The answer is yes, but the jets are virtual. That is the purpose of simulator training.

In the simulator they create all sorts of dire emergencies for the pilots. It can be harrowing. A pilot I once worked with described how he was shaken for hours after he "survived" a simulator session in which, after routine testing in which he had done particularly well, they threw the works at him. After an unusually high number of rare simultaneous failures and problems, he ended up averting a virtual crash by flying the simulated plane between airport buildings. It left him as distressed as he would have been if it had happened in an actual aircraft.

That's your disposable jet right there.

The presence of "auto-land" is moot on public carriers that land in the USA, as the cockpit doors are locked from the inside and armored. If everyone in the cockpit is incapacitated, who will open the door to let you in?

Anyway, my understanding of this is that the above "how to" isn't quite right:
You have to hope that the settings programmed into the autopilot will intercept the glidepath for landing.
When you get the signal that you have intercepted the landing beacon, hitting the "Auto-land" button should take care of direction, descent, flaps etc. It is even set up to hit the brakes and thrust reverser once the wheels hit tarmac.
Also, my understanding is that pilots routinely land "by hand". I wonder if above commenters are confusing the "fly-by-wire" control interface with auto-pilot and auto-land?
I've driven a Pontiac Vibe that did not have any physical cable or hydraulic connection between the "go" pedal and the actual gubbins that control fuel-air mixture in to the cylinders. I did not get any sense that the car was driving for me.
Likewise, some aircraft controls are electronic sensors in the joystick controlling motors rather than power-assisted hydraulics or systems of cables, guides, and pulleys. The movement of the controls still controls the flying of the aircraft.

They did it in Airplane.

Sully wasn't using auto-land when he put the plane down on the river in NYC.

As a commercial pilot, I've gotta chime in here. First, anyone sitting in the front of a large jet can fly it, land it, etc.. without any "auto" assistance. You don't just train in a simulator (although you do a lot of sim time). That's not to say that heavy jets don't have lots of computers helping with flight management, but anyone with an ATP (the license required for that kind of work) can fly the aircraft by looking out the windows and using the controls.

As a former regional airline pilot I feel that there are a few points that should be made. First every pilot that sits in the front of a jet can certainly land the plane manually. I can't speak to the systems of a Jumbo Jet but can tell you that the smaller jets are not equipped with an autoland system. Every landing is done by hand.
Second, the article makes it sound much more difficult than it actually is. Putting the landing gear down involves nothing more than moving a lever. Same with putting the flaps down. Disconnecting the autopilot is simply a matter of pushing one bright red button right on the yoke. Thrust reversers would probably not be nessecary as in an emergency situation ATC would send you to the longest runway in the area (which in a jet can be a pretty big area). Airports such as DFW and JFK have runways nearly 2 1/2 miles long. As far as using the brakes is concerned, it is not difficult at all; just push on the top of the pedals the same amount on each side. The hardest part would probably be steering the plane to keep it straight once on the ground.
Jets are extremely durable and capable of taking a very hard landing. I feel that with a qualified air traffic controller as well as a qualified pilot on the radio a novice would have a much better chance than 1% of landing the plane.
This of course leaves out a few important facts. First, nearly any large commercial flight will have a qualified pilot somewhere in back who is either dead heading, commuting, or traveling for pleasure. Secondly, as a previous poster commented the cockpit door is always locked from the inside during flight and is supposedly impenetrable so if both the pilots became incapcitated inside the cockpit then there would be nothing that could be done.

One other bit of food for though: the first time that I actually saw the plane that I was trained on was when I showed up to fly it at DFW with passengers on board. All the training up to that point was done in a full motion simulator which I think is a testament to the quality of training that takes place at an airline.