FOR ALL FREQUENT FLYERS:
•An airline captain explains that all pilots are trained in gliding techniques
•Another pilot explains why engine failure doesn't mean 'instant calamity'
•In 1982 a British Airways Boeing 747 glided from 37,000ft to 12,000ft

There is no doubt at all that the experience of being on a passenger plane during a total engine failure is never going to be pleasant.

But experienced pilots have revealed how this scenario doesn’t necessarily mean disaster – because even huge airliners can glide a very long way, meaning that while over land there will always be a good chance of making it to a runway.

One serving long-haul captain based in the UK explained to MailOnline Travel that ‘typically a jet can glide about two miles for each 1,000ft of altitude’.
He continued:[b] ‘So at 40,000ft cruise altitude the range of the aircraft to touchdown is about 80 miles.’

[/b]He added: ‘So pilots are trained in gliding techniques, but always with the idea that it buys time to get the engines re-started as the judgement needed to successfully land with zero power from 40,000 feet makes it a tricky business.’
Patrick Smith, author of Cockpit Confidential, also has some reassuring thoughts on the subject.

He writes: ‘There’s no greater prospect of instant calamity than switching off the engine in your car when coasting downhill. The car keeps going, and a plane will too.’

He also reveals that passenger jets glide on most journeys.

He writes: ‘It’s not the least bit uncommon for jets to descend at what a pilot calls “flight idle,” with the engines run back to a zero-thrust condition. They’re still operating and powering crucial systems, but providing no push. You’ve been gliding many times without knowing it. It happens on just about every flight.

‘Obviously an idle-thrust glide is different from the engines quitting outright, but even then, the glide itself would be no different.’

Pilots used this technique to descend the aircraft from cruise altitude for the approach. When the engine note changes and the noise reduces that is what 'flight idle' feels like.

There have been several well-publicised gliding manoeuvres performed by commercial pilots over the years.

The most famous is undoubtedly the one executed by Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger in 2009, when he glided his A320 into New York’s Hudson following a bird strike that led to total engine failure.

The gliding technique is useless and cannot carry the plane to the runway if the engines refused to start. The engine has to start in order to avert disaster, I wonder why they can't build a plane with big parachutes to land the plane safely in case of engine failure

I would not want to be a passenger or on the ground......

lofty900:
The gliding technique is useless and cannot carry the plane to the runway if the engines refused to start. The engine has to start in order to avert disaster, I wonder why they can't build a plane with big parachutes to land the plane safely in case of engine failure

You are absolutely wrong. There is a recorded case of a Boeing 777 perhaps Several other which had its engine shut off due to fuel shut in and still manages to land at Heathrow airport with very minimal damage.

lofty900:
The gliding technique is useless and cannot carry the plane to the runway if the engines refused to start. The engine has to start in order to avert disaster, I wonder why they can't build a plane with big parachutes to land the plane safely in case of engine failure

You're wrong, please do some research.