<p>In the general aviation community, the “impossible turn” refers to a maneuver where—when there is a total loss of thrust during takeoff, the pilot immediately turns back and attempts to land on the departed runway. Such action is usually not advisable due to the risk of stalling and the fact that there may not be enough altitude to turn back. Despite the risk, pilots still attempt the maneuver—and there have been both tragic accidents and incredible survival stories. For eVTOL aircraft, the turnback could also be a preferred, or only, option if a transition to VTOL is not possible during a power-loss. In this paper, we attempt to answer the question: Is it possible to automate these type of emergency maneuvers? We formulate the turnback problem as an optimal trajectory generation problem that minimizes altitude loss with terminal constraints on crossrange position and track angle. We first present the full nonlinear optimal control problem in order to gain initial insights. However, the computation time for the full problem is <i>too slow to run in real time</i>. We then propose two near-optimal algorithms with characteristics similar to the full optimal solution, yet the computation times are significantly faster, enabling the algorithms to be run in real time. The algorithms are based on concatenations of optimal segments. Nondimensional formulation was also employed in order to handle variations in both aircraft weight and air density. The algorithms consist of both offline and online trajectory computations. We test both algorithms in the receding horizon manner and show that both algorithms are robust against changes in the initial conditions.</p>