Florida man with no flying experience lands plane
A passenger on a small plane has kept his cool after the pilot collapsed at the controls, forcing him to take over and land the plane with zero flying experience.
Darren Harrison told NBC’s Today show that he had been relaxing in the back of the single-engine Cessna on his return from a fishing trip in the Bahamas when the pilot told him and another passenger: “Guys, I gotta tell you I don’t feel good”.
“He said, ‘I’ve got a headache and I’m fuzzy and I just don’t feel right’,” the 39-year-old Florida man said. “And I said, ‘What do we need to do?’ and, at that point, he didn’t respond at all.”
After climbing into the cockpit, Mr Harrison discovered the unconscious pilot and that the plane was diving fast.
“All I saw when I came up to the front was water out the right window and I knew it was coming quick. At that point, I knew if I didn’t react, that we would die,” he recalled.
The flooring salesman then reached over the pilot, grabbed the controls, and slowly pulled back the stick to level the plane, which he said was simply common sense.
“I knew if I went up and yanked that, the airplane would stall,” he explained. “And I also knew that at the rate we were going, we were going way too fast, and it would probably rip the wings off of the airplane.”
He said that thought was “the scariest part of the whole story”.
What if your pilot became ill and you had to fly the plane? That’s what happened over the ocean, 25 miles from @flyPBI. Air traffic controllers sprang to action and calmly guided a passenger to land safely. Read about the miracle at 7,000 ft on our blog https://t.co/4Hn7JzNKN5. pic.twitter.com/2KPhpmqG2S
— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) May 11, 2022
The other pilot - who he said was a friend of the pilot - helped him move the pilot out of the seat so that Mr Harrison could take his place.
But, when he put on the headset, he realised the wires were frayed and the plug was gone and took the headset from the other passenger.
He reached out to an air traffic controller in Florida but, when asked if knew the plane’s position, said the GPS was out so he had no idea.
The air traffic controller then asked what he could see, with Mr Harrison telling him: “I see the state of Florida and I see a small airport”.
He recalled refusing to let fear set in at that moment, with the knowledge that landing the plane was his only choice.
“When I was flying and saw the state of Florida, at that second I knew I’m going to land there,” he said. “I don’t know what the outcome’s going to be, I don’t know how it’s going to happen, but I knew I’m going to have to land this airplane because there’s no other option.”
Mr Harrison said he had to get home to his wife, Britney, who was seven months pregnant with their first child.
“People said what if you had crashed and died? You could have at least called her, you could have reached out to her, you had time,” he said.
“In my mind I knew I wasn’t going to die, and the thought never crossed my mind to call and tell my wife, ‘bye’.”
With the help of air traffic controller Robert Morgan, Mr Harrison safely landed the plane at Palm Beach International Airport.
“I said thank you for everything and threw the headset on the dash and I said the biggest prayer I’ve ever said in my life,” he recalled.
“That’s when all the emotion set in.”
Mr Harrison recalled offering a “thankful prayer for the safety and everything that had happened”, with the strongest part of the prayer going to the “guy in the back because I knew it was not a good situation”.
The pilot was taken to hospital and is expected to be released this week, according to Mr Harrison.
After landing, Mr Harrison then called his wife, who wasn’t expecting to hear from him so early.
Britney said that last year, her brother-in-law died when her sister was six months pregnant, “so honestly, I took a deep breath and prepared myself for it not to be him on the other line”.
“I told myself, ‘God we can’t do this again’. I don’t think I could do it again. And thankfully we didn’t have to.”
Image: Twitter