Plane lands itself at Colorado airport after rapid loss of pressurization

Plane lands itself at Colorado airport after 'rapid' loss of pressurization

Two people walked off a plane Saturday after it landed itself at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport.

The plane took off from Aspen and the Autoland system was triggered shortly after. The system finds the nearest airport and will land the plane there. It also sends out emergency alerts to air traffic controllers, who cannot direct the plane and need to clear the airspace.

North Metro Fire crews were standing by for the plane to arrive, but a spokesperson said they did not treat either person aboard or transport anyone to the hospital.

Chris Townsley, CEO of Buffalo River Aviation, which owns the plane, said in a statement that the Super King Air 200 experienced a rapid loss of pressurization after it climbed to 23,000 feet.

The two pilots put on their oxygen masks, and the Autoland system automatically engaged. There were no passengers aboard, Townsley said.

"Due to the complexity of the specific situation, including instrument meteorological conditions, mountainous terrain, active icing conditions, unknown reasons for loss of pressure, and the binary (all-or-nothing) function of the Garmin emergency systems; the pilots, exercising conservative judgement under their emergency command authority (FAR 91.3) made the decision to leave the system engaged while monitoring its performance and attempting communications as able within the constraints of the system," Townsley said in the statement.

The pilots were prepared to take manual control of the aircraft if the Autoland system malfunctioned, the statement says.

"That really captured the aviation community over the last couple of days because it has now vetted the technology that it did work. It worked as advertised and successfully got an airplane down," said Greg Feith, 9NEWS aviation expert .

"The computer's estimating it'll be on the ground here in a few minutes," an air traffic controller said over the radio.

The Autoland system sent period audio messages estimating how soon the plan would land. The radio traffic shows the tower worked to clear the airspace due to the emergency.

A spokesperson for the National Transportation Safety Board told 9NEWS they are gathering information on the landing to determine whether they will investigate.