Nowdays u dun even need a pilot to land a passenger plane with the more advanced electronics.
He just have to sit there and make sure the landing is smooth and without any hitch.
Of coz, sometimes, Sh!t happens...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxsZfX4A1Rg
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True but not all airports and planes have tha technology in place to land. There are many level of autopilot ability from those that can asist take off to fly a planned route to anti-air to air collision and yes...even landing but just last year I saw a documentary on one of those Discovery channel (Heavy Metal) which show it was only at testing stages and you need cooridination between an airport and the plane to make it work. If either one does not have that technology in place..it will not work. I think it was Airbus that was testing it.
So until this expensive piece of technology is implemented, auto landing is still far from coming around just yet.As you can see from your link. heh
Something I dug up from some searchign I did.....might be interestng read for some like me who are into this kind of stuff..
Aviation Autopilot Categories of Landing
Instrument aided landings are defined in categories by the ICAO. These are dependent upon the required visibility level and the degree to which the landing can be conducted automatically without input by the pilot.
CAT I - This category permits pilots to land with a decision height (where the pilot takes over from the autopilot) of 200 ft (≈ 60 m) and a forward visibility of 2400 ft (≈ 730 m). Simplex autopilots are sufficient.
CAT II - This category permits pilots to land with a decision height between 200 ft and 100 ft (≈ 30 m) and a forward visibility (RVR = Runway Visual Range) of 1000 ft (300 m). Autopilots have a fail passive requirement.
CAT IIIa -This category permits pilots to land with a decision height as low as 50 ft (≈ 15 m) and a forward visibility (RVR) of 700 ft (200 m). It needs a fail-passive autopilot. The probability of landing within the prescribed area must be better than 1.
CAT IIIb - As IIIa but with the addition of automatic roll out after touchdown incorporated with the pilot taking control some distance along the runway. This category permits pilots to land with a decision height less than 50 feet or no decision height and a forward visibility of 250 ft (75 m, compare this value to the aircraft size...) or 300 ft (100m) in the US. For a landing without decision aid, a fail-operational autopilot is needed. Obviously for this category some form of runway guidance system is needed : at least fail passive but it needs to be fail-operational for landing without decision height or for RVR below 375 feet (125 m).
CAT IIIc - As IIIb but without decision height or visibility minima, also known as "zero-zero". No aircraft is approved for this category. It would necessitate a reliable way for the aircraft and ground vehicle to maneuver on the ground without any visual reference.
Fail-passive autopilot: in case of failure, the aircraft stays in a controllable position and the pilot can take control of it to go around or finish landing. It is usually a dual-channel system.
Fail-operational autopilot: in case of a failure below alert height, the approach, flare and landing can still be completed automatically. It is usually a triple-channel system or dual-dual system.