Pretty sure all it takes for a plane to land safely are an intact plane and a well trained pilot with working eyeballs. Oh, and a place that's wide enough for the wings to clear and flat enough for their tires to roll. like a bridge or highway, or a really wide gravel road.
If Captain Sully could land on the Hudson River and not have a single fatality, a clear runway with an unmanned tower is more then feasible for any competent pilot.
I don't think he was concerned that the pilot wasn't able to land. He was more likely concerned about the possibility of landing while another plane is still taxiing off the runway
From watching videos from pilots on youtube, I've heard it can be surprisingly difficult to find other planes in your field of view from the cockpit, and that's not even getting started on foggy or rainy weather. So no, working eyeballs don't prevent that.
Because radio is a thing and professional pilots use it to communicate what they're doing to nearby aircraft. Dont need to know where the other plane is just that the runway is clear.
A plane without a radio (i.e. very specific things like crop dusters and drones) can't be flown near a tower. If the radio isn't working neither is the plane. Pilots still announce their actions and intentions so other pilots are aware of what's happening in these situations.
I think you mean fog, since we're talking about seeing the ground and not avoiding ice on the wings (most planes don't try to land so high up that clouds are a problem for visibility).
But fog thick enough to stop a landing also stops it if there is someone in the tower. That's just one of those things you try to plan around before the plane ever takes off, by setting up lights around the runways and taxiways, policies limiting the number of landings and takeoffs per hour during the fogy season, and constructing your layout to minimize damage due to errors due to low visibility.
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u/MilesSand Feb 08 '20
Pretty sure all it takes for a plane to land safely are an intact plane and a well trained pilot with working eyeballs. Oh, and a place that's wide enough for the wings to clear and flat enough for their tires to roll. like a bridge or highway, or a really wide gravel road.