Air traffic controllers are not necessarily pilots, but luckily, this one was a pilot and certified instructor. ATC and passenger worked through a stressful situation to produce an amazing outcome. Bravo!
At minimum they must have spent significant time around aviation or be ex-military.
e: From another comment on Reddit
> Examples: > The passenger knew what button to press on the yoke to transmit to ATC. > The passenger knew aviation phraseology and phonetics “333 Lima Delta”. > The passenger knew where the altimeter was and his altitude “I’m maintaining 9100 feet” > Passenger was able to identify the transponder and enter a squawk code. > Passenger knew what the vertical speed indicator was “I’m descending right now at 550 feet a minute passing 8640 feet”. > My wife, who flies with me regularly, might get one or two of those items, but probably couldn't point out the transponder, much less enter a squawk code without instructions.
I can't imaging myself getting anything from an unknown manual full of jargon in such a stressful environment!
Personally, ATC is your best bet here. I'd say a lot of people who have ever flown a flight simulator can get the plan low and slow enough to not cause death upon impact. I would anticipate a bumpy landing, some injury and a lost plane...so this outcome is pretty impressive imo.
Thanks for the link, it's definitely not the kind of things you're supposed to discover while attempting to pilot a plane for the first time.
Many (most?) airlines have abandoned printed manuals and paperwork in cockpits and have switched to tablets - often iPads - for weight considerations and because they are easier to just keep updated, and those are usually non-accessible to random passengers. Notable exception are emergency checklists.
My later year A36, I believe needs the original AFM/POH. (In any case, I do carry it.)
If you didn’t know how to fly, you couldn’t read enough of the book to figure it out before the aircraft departed controlled flight (if not on at least a wing-leveler autopilot).
As the owner/operator of an early 1979 build aircraft that does not have an AFM, I’ve had this discussion with maintenance/airworthiness inspectors so frequently that I keep a printout of 14 cfr 21.5 in my POH.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-C...
In any case, landing a real plane in this scenario is even a little easier than in a simulator (though more dangerous, of course). You get all the vectors for the approach from the ATC, they tell all the other traffic to scuttle off and so on.
"Morgan [controller] learned the passenger on the line had never flown a plane -- but had been around aviation and seen other pilots fly."
Considering the amount of Zoom, Teams, Huddles and Google meets meetings I been into over the last couple of years I would be surprised if a majority of people fix this.
My instructor encouraged me to buy MS FS, pedals and a yoke.
I think my key for landing was learning flaps and throttle and getting a feel for stall speeds in sims.
Now, would I want to test that in an actual plane in a life and death emergency? Not really. But I'd wager my odds are good.
Having an unbelievable number of hours in MSFS when I was a kid ... landing a real plane is considerably harder and a ton of instruction time is just focused on getting you to land reliably. I finished my PPL in just over 40hrs which is close to the minimum. Most people will fall into the 60-100hr pool.
I'm dubious that this passenger really had zero experience it takes a good 6-10hrs to get decent at landing (as in not bending metal).
MSFS does however offer a reasonable feeling for the cruise portion of a flight.
That shows dead comments with a color and text indicator when enabled.
This seems familiar - I remember flying with mitten gloves (due to cold!), controls were joystick, rudder, flaps, and an altimeter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingsby_T.21
He did that one landing well, but he did not show that he can land reliably.
FOUND IT: https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1999-05-03-99050300...
My aviation skills were also interesting. I had no problem with coordinated turns and holding a heading. However I almost busted the bravo because my altitude kept creeping and I was so used to using the electric trim tab on my joystick. However in the real plane there are two and you need to hold both. Plus, I should have just used the wheel which I don't have on my HOTAS. My second flight in a 172 was much better in that regard.
The sim doesn't prepare you for the physical sensations. Not just the movement, but the massively improved FOV, contrast, resolution, and frame rate. It was pure sensory overload. I did all the approaches and it just felt comfortable.
My HOTAS is both a blessing and a curse. It's great for VR, but my muscle memory was all messed up. And the input sensitivity and weight is very different IRL. And despite knowing I'd likely be fixated by the instruments, and should be looking outside, I did it anyway.
Hope this was helpful. Can't recommend simming enough. It's what made me want to do a discovery flight in the first place. It was magical.
Or mostly uninterested spouse.
Having seen some stuff is a far cry from knowing things.
In 30 minutes of the instructor sitting next to me, I successfully landed and took off in a Cessna 172, learned to trim power, elevators and flaps, learned how to transmit and how to “squawk ident”, and what channel to use in emergencies (1202 IIRC).
Operating the airplane was very straightforward. Without the instructor or someone talking to me, I would not have known what to do when, but I can completely see how someone reasonably smart, calm, and able to follow directions could land such an airplane in good conditions.
as a curious stem type who used to fly with other curious stem types back in the day, i remember asking for all the details and being given them.
edit: 12xx is vfr no code assigned with various modifiers. 7700 declare emergency. 7600 radio out. 7500 mutiny.
Most modern aircraft are capable of providing a lot more data over their radio transponder, including a system unique identifier, but it turns out that "squawking" a four digit code is a useful amount of discretion to give humans. If you could do it over maybe a decimal code would have been better, but too late now.
do modern mode 3 transponders also include tail number or some other unique identifier in a sideband?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Dependent_Surveillan...
(I don't know how much squawk codes are, or were, used to specifically identify aircraft in the past, but I believe that currently it's not unusual that many aircraft in the same region would be squawking the same number, which would not confuse ATC because of all the other transponder data that's available.)
In Europe some areas (but not all) have switched to using the Mode-s/ADS-B identification (which is a 24 bits unique code not configurable by the pilot but fixed to the aircraft) in their systems and setting the traditional transponder code to 1000 for all of those aircraft.
In the long term expect everyone to adopt that approach, but things in aviation move very slowly so it will be many many years before we're there.
0000 is closer to “null”, but still isn’t quite. 1000 also has some “null” like properties when it comes to ADS-B. Note that what I’m saying is North American centric and not necessarily ICAO nor other areas, which can differ somewhat.
The question is she did not where she was, guess there is no gps map. And more importantly she has to fly the thing.
And in a commerical one you have gps and auto pilot. You can concentrate on those, as long as you have radio. Metuor has a video which is basically just use radio. You basically do not fly the plane. In fact the basic advice is not touched the yoke.
The responsibility is much higher of course.
I would imagine she had a smartphone. Gmaps/Amaps is no match for Skydemon but it's a million times better than nothing.
7500 -> Being Hijacked 7600 -> Radio/Comms Failure 7700 -> Emergency
These questions often get answered pretty quickly. We get talking on our headsets, now I'm about to taxi, and so I make a call. Shortly there after, when I'm talking to my passenger, there's a nervous 'Can other people hear me??' 'Nope, I push this button right here to broadcast to everyone, otherwise it's just you and me.' 'Where is that button? Is this it? I don't want to push it.'
In a small airplane, any interested passenger will ask a number of questions that help that acclimate. If this guy was a friend of the pilot and flew a bit with him, he had some familiarity.
Is there a full recording up anywhere yet?
I would love to know how fast they landed him. My inclination would be to talk someone through a landing that was a little faster than usual, because you have more control, and don't have to worry about the flair so much. Just drive it gently onto the runway and then slow it down after that. Which works fine for a little plane on a big runway.
Unfortunately, the instructor-led talkdown was done via a phone call.
It's not like being in the cabin in a commercial airliner, you'd see the pilot doing these things, and honestly as far as plane interfaces go, the Cessna is not bad.
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
Here's the instrument panel. While I wouldn't say every untrained person can just "figure it out", I think there are a decent number who would at least be able to get an altitude, heading, and vertical speed reading out of that. Especially if you'd spent some time in the last 30 minutes looking at them while your pilot friend is focused on flying.
I've spent a signficant amount of time flying cessnas in MS flight sim and XPlane, but I wouldn't assume that would automatically carry over if I ended up in a situation like that, and I certainly would err on the side of caution and risk ATC thinking I had less knowledge than risk overstating it and risk something going wrong because they end up thinking I'd be confident performing an ILS approach or something.
Thats what you need a cool head when everyone else is losing theirs. Not only that if the pilot had any sense he would give any passenger in the front a TLDR for emergencies just as a common courtesy. TBH I'm surprised the various Aviation Authorities have not mandated some sort of TLDR emergency/safety guide for small planes and their passengers, unless of course they dont really care if one drops out of the sky killing everyone!?!
Not a pilot, but taken control of a biplane, & helicopter, biplane is so easy, doing the nose dives like you see in the old war movies, bringing them up to stalling point etc, the plane even makes the same noise as you here in the movies, but its bloody cold even with your sheepskin coat on.
Helicopters, now they are sensitive and the pilot wouldnt let me do the pedals, but it was a hover test, ie seeing how long I could keep it hovering.
Have flown with ex red arrows doing the same stunts as a passenger, I think they tried their best to get me to use their sick back but they didnt succeed, haven't done any fighter jets yet, or any Air Racing but never say never!
I would imagine the acceleration from a flight deck catapult must be on a par with a Porsche 911 Turbo S on launch control, maybe a bit better who knows?
This is with the exception of auto return to base autopilots and parachute systems like Cirrus's. Those are safe to be operated by passengers. But we didn't have either of those, most of the planes didn't even have an autopilot.
The plane in the article was a Cessna 208 though and probably had one.
Having an untrained passenger is no worse than flying solo. The latter is clearly allowed, and should probably stay allowed?
It would be an opportunistic thing that only applies when it's near zero cost.
It would look more like this unless it has the glass cockpit of course:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Cessna_2...
In the real world, when you sit up straight, you see just fine out of a tricycle gear airplane and see the runway ahead on the ground and the ground below you in the air. And then you slouch a couple inches and look down and have a great view of the bottom instruments.
EDIT: Never mind. You can find it downthread.
Maintaining altitude was what I found most difficult as a student pilot my instructor drew a line on the windscreen with a marker to help me. I could vary 1,000 feet or more up or down before the instructor told what was going on.
Knowing how to get the frequency for the tower or just knowing they had to was telling.
And landing is tricky knowing to aim at the end of the runway as if you're going to crash and then flare as if you're going up again. All counter-intuitive to anyone who is not aware that's what's done. Not to mention speed, flaps, rudder control.
And the barf oh the barf!
The fact he knew phonetics just makes me believe he served or at the very least, was heavily exposed in another function.
This is just one data point, but I'm a random software engineer with no military or aviation background or interests, and I know NATO phonetics. I think it's not that uncommon.
(My main use case is spelling things over the phone.)
And so it has proved. That was maybe fifteen years ago; I'm so accustomed now, that I'll use it reflexively with everyone.
Anecdotally, I have observed that certain professions are inclined to treat those that use it with more respect.
He was also very comfortable with the radio, dropping in terms like 10-4.
A similar episode a few years back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzhKczNcB_c
(There's the full audio for that somewhere but I can't find it right now)
Btw, This got me curious and looked into Rowan Atkinson's (Mr. Bean) similar plane incident[1] where he supposedly maintained control of the aircraft mid-air when his pilot was incapacitated and the pilot recovered eventually to land the plane. All information on this incident points to Rowan not having any prior flying experience.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_Atkinson#Plane_incident
I once maintained level on a Cessna equivalent with zero training besides video games (I loved flight simulators back in the late 90s), and a tiny bit of model flying (I flew little and crashed a lot). Maintaining altitude wasn’t trivial, but maintaining level was dead easy. I’m sure I could have managed a very slight bank turn safely. Now landing… some years later I got 5 hours of gliding. My first landing went well enough that the instructor didn’t have to take control. If my instructor got sick instead, I would give my former self 30% chance of avoiding injury or death. 75% if a trained instructor with a similar glider could tail me and observe me more closely (and I think there were). Never ever gonna risk such folly of course, but I wouldn’t have been doomed either.
Then there’s selection bias: we hear of this because it is a feat. No question about that. Now let’s not forget about all the people that tried this and died. For those we’ll only hear of the pilot getting sick and the plane crashing. Or just the plane crashing. Those make for less impressive headlines.
Now, landing it? That's an entirely different beast for sure.
I suspect there is a little more to the story. On the LiveATC audio, he was giving descent rates and asking tower/approach for headings. Didn't speak like a pilot but seemed to know more than a layperson. Maybe some aviation exposure but no flight time? Whatever the case, very well done by both him and ATC.
If I kicked off in flight on day/good weather, and she was up front, I’m pretty sure that airplane would end up inside the airport perimeter, probably stopped on all three wheels on a runway. That’s not to take anything away from this pax feat, but it’s pretty likely they at least had a pretty good idea of how things work. (And were in a fairly simple airplane.)
I think that's true as you stated it, but this wasn't a little 150; it was a 208 (which seats up to 14). Very common to have non-aviation passengers in something like that. On the flip side, the fact that he was sitting front-right seat could be evidence he had some aviation background (e.g. as a pilot + aviation enthusiast, I would excitedly take that seat if it was an option).
"Morgan had never flown this model Cessna. He pulled up a picture of the instrument panel's layout and started guiding his new student step-by-step."
Morgan was the ATC.
[0] https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/florida-passenger-lan...
I have a couple of landings in a commercial simulator (A380 and 747). It is manageable in good weather and in proper landing configuration. But I would have no idea how to operate the instruments properly. I'd need someone very familiar with the plane to talk me into the proper configuration.
I wouldn’t take an even money wager on it but I don’t think it’s terribly unlikely to have a decent landing. Especially since the pilot likely was showing him the controls in air before going unresponsive.
The bad news is that it is 10/28 (east-west) and the wind was reported from the north at 11 knots gusting 17.
KPBI 101553Z 02011G17KT 10SM SCT042 SCT046 26/15
A student pilot with 20 hours of training probably wouldn’t have been signed off by his/her/zir/their instructor to operate in that kind of crosswind.
From: https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2022/05/10/a-hero-flies-th...
But I didn’t realize he was flying a turboprop in crosswinds though!
1) This was a single engine plane w/out constant speed prop. So really the only things to worry about would be throttle, flight controls (maybe trim), and mixture. 2) Looks like it was a steam gauge plane so luckily the student didn't have to learn a fugly glass panel UI 3) The stall speed on these planes is pretty low, so ATC probably had them do a pattern to get used to the distances and then come in a bit hot for the actual landing. Coming in a bit hot in a cessna like that just results in landing deep or a rough landing when you pull the power vs. stalling and crashing (which is much more likely if the PIC tried to do 60 knots on final). If they roll past the end of the runway a bit it'll damage the plane but at least they're on the ground. 4) The landing gear on those planes is really strong. You can botch the landing and the plane will be fine.
That said, there was plenty of runway available, and on touchdown, the excess speed (if any) was easily compensated for.
The passenger-pilot clearly had general aviation familiarity, and kept a cool head. Both of which help immensely.
(My own flight experience: general understanding of flight controls and theory, pax in a handful of small-plane flights, RH seat. An hour or so of straight-and-level flying. A bit of sim. No formal training.)
Landing on a long runway (10001 feet / 3048 meters [1]) as was done here is much easier, as long as the plane doesn't malfunction and visibility is good. So I'm not that surprised that some people would be able to do this given good instructions over the radio / phone. Especially so if the person doing it has witnessed landings from a cockpit before, which may have been the case here.
With such a long and wide runway, if you can direct the plane to fly over the runway and then cut off power, that should be enough to land the plane somewhat safely I would think.
[1] Runway 10L at https://skyvector.com/airport/PBI/Palm-Beach-International-A...
Lucky they were in Florida with working radios and gas in the tank to reach an accommodating runway. None of that should detract from the emergency pilot's excellent handling of the situation though—bravo!
[edit] Apparently there was a significant crosswind:
KPBI 101553Z 02011G17KT 10SM SCT042 SCT046 26/15
My point was just that this is feasible a lot of the time with some good radio help .
The weather at Palm Beach International Airport on the 10’th at 15:53 GMT was: Winds, from the North-Northeast at 11 knots, gusting up to 17 knots. Visibility 10 statute miles. Clouds, some scattered ones at 4,200 and 4,600 feet above the airport ground level. Temperature 26 Celsius, dew point 15 Celsius.
METAR is pretty character efficient.
As long as the landing strip is long enough, you can take things very slowly.
For a second, I thought you were the pilot from the article that was incapacitated haha...
0 https://www.wsj.com/articles/affirmative-action-lands-in-the...
Also a pilot here. I don't get it, this is a Cessna 208 we're talking about, a very easy plane to land given good conditions.
They even had a very long runway to work with here.
Interestingly a big jet might be easier. It would likely be on autopilot and autothrottle when the novice took over. ATC would need to talk them through programming a diversion into FMS and some other systems stuff, but if there was an airport nearby with good weather and a suitable ILS, and nothing failed, they could set up an autoland and never have to actually handle the aircraft themselves.
Source? The article itself is quite short.