Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post
If the aircraft cannot physically be directed to the waypoints in the auto-pilot, does auto-pilot shut off or does it attempt to navigate the aircraft towards the waypoint and the aircraft ends up trying to fulfill that destination? I.e. if it had to turn 70 degrees but could only turn 30, would it turn 30 or would it shut off?
(Preface: I've never tried to plug a set of WPs into any FMS that were going to require the sort of flightpath we're talking about here. With that said, here's what I believe having spent a little time on a few sims and way too much time looking at FMC/S documentation.)

The AP won't shut down at that point. If you're that close to the waypoint that you are going to require a very large direction change to reach it, then it would likely consider that waypoint as being overflown and activate the next one.

I've been doing a little bit of reading on the 777-200's FMS today. I've just learned that when out of waypoints, the AP will hold the last heading.

I've also heard a bit of speculation regarding the search area 1500nm off Perth. 40.7140° S, 85.6494° E roughly. When you change the 'S' to an 'N', you end up with a coordinate somewhere in Xinjiang province. Read into that what you will. Grasping at straws, or hijacking fumbled by a typo.