Passenger Lands Plane After Pilot Dies

A passenger who landed a twin-engine plane at Southwest Florida International Airport after the pilot died in flight, saved four lives and is being called a hero. Federal Aviation Administration officials say the pilot died after takeoff from Marco Island Executive Airport on Sunday. The plane was on autopilot and climbing past 10,000 feet when the pilot died. The passenger who took the controls is licensed to fly single-engine planes but isn't certified to fly the two-engined King Air plane. An air traffic controller called a friend in Connecticut who picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue, and is rated to fly the aircraft. The pair talked the new pilot to a safe landing.

Comments

MythBusters?

[antdude]

I thought MB busted this myth.

Re:MythBusters?

[petermgreen]

mythbusters concluded it was possible to talk someone through landing an airliner (they successfully had someone talk jamie and adam through a landing in a simulator with the person doing the talking through using only the info that would be availible to ATC)but could find no evidence of it ever being done and thought it unlikely it ever would be since airliners have two pilots.

There is a better article on this emergency at http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/apr/14/conn-pilot-part-team-helps-passenger-land-plane-sa/ .

This was not an airliner but a much smaller executive plane (13 passenger capacity according to wikipedia) which explains why there was not a copilot. Also the person who took over WAS was a qualified pilot for smaller planes. Presumablly it's a lot easier to talk a pilot through landing a larger aircraft than it is to talk a layman through landing one.

Re:MythBusters?

[Anonymous Coward]

All,

I'm a private pilot. I fly light, single engine airplanes. I would never fly a twin-engined airplane without training because there are some fundamental differences on managing these aircraft. Specifically, an engine failure in a twin-engine aircraft creates a situation called assymetric thrust which makes the airplanes nose yaw away from the intended direction of flight. Pilots trained in multi-engined aircraft know how to prevent this.

There are significant differences between flying a single engine airplane and a turbo-prop aircraft like the King Air. Any sane pilot would not purposely fly a category of airplane for which he/she is not appropriately trained. Nonetheless, the principles of flying fixed wing airplanes are fairly similar. The biggest differences are approach airspeeds, more complicated systems to manage (retractable undercarriage and twin engines).

One final point, it's typically easy to learn to fly, but pretty hard to learn to land correctly. All takeoffs are optional, but landings are manadatory!

With all that said, it would be much easier to talk a pilot through landing than a non-pilot. Flying requires some muscle memory and training for you to correctly perceive height and angle of approach. A couple of things, like using pitch to control your speed versus power, are not immediately intuitive. As a result, it is very difficult (but probably not impossible) to talk a non-pilot through a landing.

Think about when you first learned to drive, it wasn't easy until you got the hang of it!

Re:MythBusters?

[Anonymous Coward]

To take your driving example. Once you learn to drive a can you will be able to at least control a semi. Perhaps not park it in reverse, but drive on highway start to finish. Since I'm also rated pilot I can assure you that if you are any good in a single engine plane you will be able to control a multi-engine. Handle emergencies is a whole different ball game.