How and where would planes land safely If air traffic control went down
In: Technology
There is such a thing as uncontrolled airports.
But if I was flying from Atlanta to San Diego and all of California went down, I’m probably stopping in Vegas, Dallas, or any of the other long list of suitable airports.
Having atleast one diversion airport is pretty much a requirement. It’s just good decision making.
Anyways, so normally it works with 4 separate stages of flying, crosswind, down wind, base, and upwind. With a bonus of base becoming final when you’re lined up to land,
You announce where you are, what you’re doing, over a standard frequency commonly called CTAF or UNICOM.
This is how smaller airports work. Anything big enough to handle a commercial flight will typically have a full time control tower who tells you what to do. There are exceptions of course but most of the time, scheduled commercial flights = air traffic control.
For more info, you can see FAA-H-8083-3H which is the “airplane flying handbook” for free on the FAA website.
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