Feds Approve New Garmin Technology That Can Land an Airplane Without a Pilot

The Federal Aviation Administration has approved cutting-edge technology developed by Olathe-based Garmin that can automatically land a small airplane in an emergency.

Piper Aircraft announced Monday that the FAA had approved a new safety system on the Piper M600/SLS that features Garmin’s Autoland.

That technology allows a pilot or passenger to press a single button. From there, Garmin’s software identifies a suitable airport, notifies air traffic controllers and lands the plane without pilot or passenger intervention. Autoland can also self-activate if a pilot is incapacitated or dead.

Autopilot technologies long ago helped automate cruising in airplanes. But Garmin says its Autoland is the first such tool to master pilotless landing in the general aviation space. The technology is so far aimed at those smaller aircraft — not commercial airliners.

Phil Straub, Garmin’s executive vice president and managing director of aviation, said the project came as an evolution of other cockpit technology that Garmin has built over the years to improve aircraft navigation and performance.

“As each of these parts kind of matured and developed, at one point we said, ‘Gee, there’s nothing that prevents us from automating this whole process,’” Straub told The Star several months ago as the technology awaited federal approval.

Safety is always a top priority in anything that touches aviation, but Autoland is unique in that it’s primary mission is to save lives during times of disaster.

“It sets it apart from the other things we do,” Straub said. “In terms of the impact to the general flying public, there’s just nothing that can really top this. This is just a once-in-a-career type thing.”

Autoland was created at Garmin’s headquarters in Olathe and tested hundreds of times by pilots at Johnson County’s New Century AirCenter and other airports.

The company is awaiting FAA approval of Autoland’s use in several other aircraft models. But it is immediately available on Piper’s flagship, the M600/SLS, a 29-foot-long propeller plane.

“This is the first aircraft to be certified with one of the most significant advancements in general aviation history,” Simon Caldecott, Piper Aircraft president and CEO, said in a news release.

For now, Autoland isn’t designed to entirely replace a pilot: It’s primary use is to take over in case of an emergency.

“We’re about giving a pilot options and helping the pilot have a safety net around them,” Eric Sargent, a Garmin flight test pilot, said in an interview.

He said the tool should provide comfort to families and may make individuals more comfortable with flying. He sometimes takes his wife and kids in the air, but understands they would not know how to operate the plane if he could not.

“They couldn’t take over the controls and be like, ‘OK I got this,’” he said. “So for me, it’s comforting to know that now there’s technology out there that if something happens to me, they can push a button and get down to the nearest airport.”

Autoland automatically notifies air traffic controllers and allows passengers to speak directly with them through the push of a button. It also allows a pilot to disengage the system and regain control of the plane. The software uses Garmin’s navigation tools to identify the nearest appropriate airport to land, deferring to smaller airports rather than big commercial ones.

“Like LaGuardia, we’re not going to go just mess up that airspace,” said Bailey Scheel, aviation programs manager and systems engineer who worked on Autoland. “But there’s enough airports around it that we could go to one of those instead that might cause less of an issue.”

While there’s still plenty of infrastructure work that would need to be completed, Autoland does put the industry closer to pilotless planes at a time when the automobile industry is toiling to bring driverless cars to the mainstream.

In many ways, Scheel said, flying is more predictable than driving a car, where drivers must navigate unpredictable obstacles and react to other drivers and pedestrians. Planes generally stay far away from each other in the air, and airport locations are fixed and routed into GPS systems.

“Autoland does show the technology’s there,” she said.

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