As would n900kn, that tbm that took off from ny and flamed out near jamaica

[/quote] Was discussing this yesterday and IF the system is designed to land in the event there are no pilot inputs, as opposed to just descending, that would work. And it seems logical that it would work this way. Has anyone seen such a claim? I have not.[/quote]

Yes it can. It looks like the algorithm is emergency descent mode if cabin altitude climbs to 14,900 ft or higher and pilot doesn’t respond to query. Plane automatically descends to 14,000 ft and levels off. Pilot is queried again. If no response autoland is activated.
The other way in which autoland is activated automatically is if LVL button is pushed and then there is no response from the pilot after 2 minutes.

Before autothrottle emergency descent was limited to whatever descent rate you could get at cruise setting (assuming consciousness was lost at cruise phase of flight) while staying below Vno. Now autothrottle can reduce power from cruise setting and emergency descent would actually occur at a better clip down.

If pilot wakes up anywhere along the process above autoland is canceled by pushing autopilot disconnect button.

This is legit. However it’s only going to be helpful to the extent that pilot incapacitation is a cause of crashes, which appears to be relatively rarely.

Edit: this is based on my reading of articles released after the announcement was made and the piper website. If anyone (Chuck Ivester, I’m looking at you) knows more about it please correct me.

Or pilot, frequently with friends or family aboard, ends up low on fuel with all airports within range below minima--which appears to occur significantly more frequently than actual pilot incapacitation.