About this site
What is 7700Landings.org?
7700Landings.org is a "crowd-sourced" database of emergency landing locations that have been vetted by fellow pilots. Users are able to download emergency landing locations that fit their specific criteria (length, surface type, location, etc.) into their Electronic Flight Book (EFB) software for quick lookup while flying. As an example a Foreflight Custom Content Pack will include the location of the site, an outline of the "runway", and aerial imagery to provide landmarks to assist in quickly locating the site. When the Custom Content layer(s) are turned on, the sites will be visible relative to the Glide Advisor ring to enable quick evaluation and selection of a site.How can I help?
Contribute Data
Add new sites to the database! It's easy. But please only add sites that you've actually visited on the ground to make sure that it looks good and the information in the database is as correct as possible.Try it out
Download a content pack for your area and try it out while flying. See if you're able to locate a suitable emergency landing site from the content pack in a simulated emergency scenario. Did the content pack help? What could we do to make it more useful? Let us know!Provide feedback
Let us know how we can improve the site, the data, or the content packs. We're new at this and have a lot to learn, so don't be shy about giving us ideas!What makes a "good" emergency landing location to add to the database?
An ideal emergency landing location is:Actual emergency landing sites in our database aren't going to meet all of these criteria. If they did, they'd be airports. However, our goal is to create a database of sites that meet as many of these criteria as possible and let you filter which sites you want to download to your EFB using your own "personal minimum" criteria.
How should I choose which sites to download from the database?
When choosing your criteria for download, we suggest erring on the side of excluding sites rather than including them. In an actual emergency situation you're not going to have time to sort through sites in your EFB...you're going to want to just check to see if there's one withing gliding distance and then commit to it. Do your down-selection now when creating your download package so that you won't have to think about it in an emergency. If your personal minimum length to land in an emergency is 1000 feet, don't download sites that are shorter than that.How often should I download from the database?
Because some of the sites in the database may only be usable during certain times of the year, we suggest creating a new download package about once a month. This will ensure that your download package only includes sites that are usable during the time that you're flying. Downloading more regularly will also ensure you have the latest information and additions.Why does the download package create two map layers in Foreflight?
Foreflight custom content packs can contain "vector" data in KML format and/or imagery tile data. Foreflight creates a different map layer for each of these two types of data. Since our download packages contain both KML files and imagery tile files, two layers are created that can be turned off or on independantly in the Map view of Foreflight.The KML Layer
The KML layer shows "runway" outlines in graphical form to highlight the exact location of the site. This type of "vector graphic" data is easier for EFBs to incorporate into synthetic vision views than the aerial imagery tiles. While the KML layer is not currently supported in synthetic vision in Foreflight, we're hoping that someday it might be.The Aerial View Tile Layer
The aerial view layer includes aerial imagery of several square miles surrounding each emergency landing location in order to assist with locating the site from the air. The aerial view imagery will not be visible until zoomed in.What improvements are still in the works?
Here's a partial list of things we're still working on for the site:How did this get started?
While practicing emergency engine failure procedures during my private pilot training I went through the usual "pick a field and set up to land there" drills. After one of those sessions, I visited the field I had chosen on the ground. It was early spring, the snow had just melted, and the field was a wet, swampy mess. While it had looked good from the air, landing there would have likely ended in substantial damage to the aircraft.I thought it would be helpful to have a few emergency landing sites in my practice area scouted out from the ground ahead of time. I also thought that a lot of other pilots may be doing the same type of thing, and that sharing our pre-scouted emergency landing locations electronically could be beneficial. 7700Landings.org is the result.