Very few commercial passenger aircraft have autoland capability, and even those that do have two human pilots ready to take over instantly in case of system failure.
The first part of your statement is not true. Autoland as in "press a button and go get a coffee" sure. Almost all commercial aircraft have systems that can land the aircraft themselves (with the pilot ready to take over at any point), but it is not often used in practice because:
- pilots still need to know how to land an aircraft themselves, so they may as well practice it (it's not like they are driving to work and can read Facebook)
- to prevent interference with the radio signals used for the ILS, ground aircraft are routed away from transmitters which reduces capacity of the airport when it has to be used
- the system isn't perfect, so from a safety perspective it's safer to use it as guidance rather than rely on it
Autoland is a requirement during severe weather conditions - when a pilot cannot obtain enough visual information to perform the landing themselves.
1) Ground aircraft are always kept out of the ILS critical zone when there is IFR traffic landing, which happens to be all commercial flights and almost all business aircraft. Autoland being used has nothing to do with this, besides, even GA planes can autoland today with RNAV GPS LPV approaches.
2) Autoland is never a requirement — usually, deciding to try an autoland landing or diverting to an alternate airport is the pilot’s game time decision.
3) Not “almost all” commercial aircraft have autoland capability. It requires specific certifications for the pilot and crew as well as the aircraft itself.
>Not “almost all” commercial aircraft have autoland capability. It requires specific certifications for the pilot and crew as well as the aircraft itself.
The 737NG, 737 MAX, 747, 757, 767, 777, 787 and every Airbus model have autoland. It's a requirement to be able to use autoland in order to be certified as a pilot for a particular type. Garmin even has a system for newer GA planes so they can autoland nowadays. Autoland is used rarely because its more work for the pilots to enable and they all think they can do a softer landing, but in very low-vis weather conditions its used pretty often.
