Depending on your disposition, it’s either an horrific nightmare or a dream come true. You’re on a packed holiday flight to Spain and an ashen-faced member of cab crew calls out ‘is there anyone on board that can fly a plane?’

It’s tremendously unlikely. But it would be nice to be prepared. And thanks to Delta Airlines pilot Tim Morgan, you can be.

After a lively discussion on question-and-answer site Quora, Tim posted a video explaining what those myriad controls in an aircraft cockpit do.

As long as you’re in an industry standard Boeing 737 that is. Unfortunately there’s no universally-accepted system for laying out and labelling the controls on an airliner. As Tim puts it:

“The good news is the plane will probably have a sophisticated autopilot that can take care of most of the flying for you.

“The bad news is you will still probably have to land it, and every aircraft cockpit is going to be different, so it's not like you'd know exactly where to look to find the things you need.”

Tim’s video talks you through the surprisingly-simple job of bringing a massive airliner safely down onto the runway.

You’ll almost certainly never need it, but it’s interesting all the same…

Video credit: Tim Morgan. Photo credit: Thinkstock