Aircraft carriers and interstates
Going purely hypothetical, we also wanted to know whether a commercial plane could land on an aircraft carrier or on a major highway.
Aircraft carriers are a big nope. While cargo planes like C-130s have landed on aircraft carriers, those planes require considerably less landing room than commercial airplanes. A 737, for example, requires about 5,000ft of runway to land in optimal conditions. The largest class of aircraft carrier -- the Nimitz class -- has a flight deck of 332.9 meters, or about 1,000ft. Nowhere close. And that's not even considering the cables and hooks on the flight deck designed to catch military planes hitting the deck at top speed to slow them down. Basically, even with a carrier handy, a commercial pilot would do better to steer for the ocean.
A popular online myth holds that one in five miles of every US interstate is straight so planes can land on them in an emergency. This is actually hogwash, and while it would, in theory, be possible for a commercial plane to land on a perfectly straight stretch of asphalt that was long enough, it has never happened. Smaller, private planes have done it, though the landing requirements for those are less onerous.
So even if your plane loses all power and has to glide to an emergency landing, hope isn't lost. Even over water, if an area is long enough and flat enough, and you fall at a slow enough rate, everyone on board might survive. The scenario isn't common, or something you ever need to worry about. But it's a small comfort to consider the next time you notice birds flocking near your runway.
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