THINK ABOUT IT!  AN AIRCRAFT PASSENGER HAVING TO LAND THE PLANE!

 

… The Cessna 208 that the passenger-pilot had to land in Palm Beach Florida

 

Fortunately, I never had the thought of my pilot becoming incoherent

 

Before I retired, I had a job where I logged what ended up being millions of air-miles, flying on commercial airlines to many business locations in the U.S, Asia, Japan and Europe.

But I just had to write this brief article on a flight that became piloted by a passenger that had no flying experience.

The unidentified passenger of a small, single engine, 9 passenger commercial aircraft, a Cessna 208, became the pilot of the plane because the pilot had become: “incoherent following a medical emergency.”

In the live audio from a call made to air traffic control at what became the Fort Pierce Tower, the unidentified passenger can be heard warning: “I’ve got a serious situation here. My pilot has gone incoherent. I have no idea how to fly the airplane.”

Roger. What’s your position?” the dispatcher responds. 

“I have no idea,” the passenger says. “I can see the coast of Florida in front of me. And I have no idea.”

The dispatcher/controller can be heard telling the passenger how to "maintain wings level" and to "just try to follow the coast, either north or southbound" as the flight controller tried to locate the plane via radar.

Ultimately, the flight controller was able to verbally walk the passenger through the steps to fly and eventually land the plane.

The single-engine passenger plane landed successfully at the Palm Beach International Airport in the middle of the day, around 12:30 PM, an NBC affiliate WPTV has reported.

"Man, they did a great job," someone can be heard saying in a separate call from the air traffic control station.

"Did you say the passengers landed the plane?" another person asks. "Oh my God. Great job."

The first person can be heard saying that the passenger had "no flying experience" before landing the plane.

The controller, who was also a flying instructor, had helped talk the passenger-pilot down for landing the aircraft.

Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office officials said that the pilot had then been taken to a hospital in connection with the incident.

They did not release information on the pilot's current condition or his identity. 

NBC News has contacted the sheriff's office for further comment and the FAA is investigating the incident.

This is a fantastic story and the passenger and the controller both need to be praised that both of them were able to complete the landing of the aircraft.

In thinking about the many flights I took over the years in those small commercial aircraft that were used when flying in remote areas of the U.S and Canada.  There were those times, when there was only one person flying the plane.  I never really thought about what would have happened if the situation were the same of that which this passenger had to deal.

Fortunately, my flights were all uneventful.  I went through many flights where I never had the thought of even having to deal with such a situation.

Fortunately, at the time, it never even came into my mind to consider such a problem.

I guess all of us on those planes had our minds in another space and we never considered there could ever be a problem.

Copyright G. Ater 2022