Calm in the Face of a Dilemma

"I've got a serious situation here. My pilot has gone incoherent."

"I have no idea how to fly the airplane. [Position?] I have no idea [but I can see the Florida coastline]."

Unnamed passenger

"I just told him to make shallow turns and slow descents and I brought him into Palm Beach International, because we had the biggest runway around there."

"I just tried to give him a nice stable approach and try to keep him calm. He said: 'I don't know how to stop this thing if I do get it on the runway'. So I said don't worry about it, we'll take it like one step at a time."

"He stayed really calm and I just kind of talked him through everything. I said: 'When you get in closer to the runaway, it's gonna get bigger. And that's when you want to start really reducing your power'."

"And the plane just landed and he said, 'OK, how do I stop this thing'?"

Robert Morgan, air traffic controller, certified flight instructor, Florida

The pilot was taken to hospital, and the passenger safely made it off the plane

He had no previous flying experience, but this passenger of a small plane whose pilot had suddenly collapsed, now can claim he had the kind of flying experience that few other people would ever have. He landed a light aircraft as a passenger, not a certified pilot. A passenger anxious to get home to his pregnant wife in Florida flying in from the Bahamas. Lucky for the man, confronted with quite the existential dilemma, an air traffic controller, whose calm seemed equal to his own guided him in the Cessna 208 into Palm Beach International airport.

 

 The unnamed passenger had the good sense to call the control tower to explain his plight. When the passenger relayed the little identifying and location information he was able to as a neophyte all-of-a-sudden-passenger-to-pilot in distress, the air traffic controller printed out a layout of the cockpit to use as a navigating guide in aid of guiding the passenger in an extemporaneous lesson on how to utilize the plane's levers and switches.

 

Other pilots in the listening area heard this peculiar exchange. "The level of difficulty that this person had to deal with in terms of having zero flight time to fly and land a single engine turbine aircraft is absolutely incredible", commented Justin Dalmolin, a JetBlue pilot whose takeoff was delayed as the Cessna Caravan landed. "You know it's nothing short of a miracle and I'm really glad for them and their families that they had such a great outcome."

 

Up o 14 passengers can be carried by the plane. To be able to fly it with a reasonable level of assurance, would normally require intense pilot training of at least several months' duration. When the plane reached the ground, the unconscious pilot was transferred to hospital; the reason behind his medical emergency was not released immediately. For the sudden-plane-flying passenger there was a transition back to being a mere passenger and he had to clear customs. 

"He just sent me a big hug. He said: 'Thank you so much' and I said, 'Man, I'm just glad that you're O.K.' It was an emotional moment."

"He said that he just wanted to get home to his pregnant wife, and I felt even better because I knew he's got a family and everybody is counting on him to be there."

Robert Morgan, air traffic controller, Florida

A passenger who successfully landed a plane traveling from the Bahamas to Florida after the pilot passed out is pictured, right, with Robert Morgan, an air traffic controller who helped guide him during the flight