A passenger with no flying experience radioed an urgent plea for help when the pilot of a small plane suddenly fell ill off Florida’s Atlantic coast and landed the plane safely with the help of air traffic controllers.
“I’ve got a serious situation here,” the man said on Tuesday afternoon, according to audio on LiveATC.net, a Web site that broadcasts and archives air traffic controller communications. “My pilot has gone incoherent. I have no idea how to fly the airplane.”
An air traffic controller in Fort Pierce responded, asking if he knew the position of the single-engine Cessna 208.
Photo: AP
“I have no idea. I can see the coast of Florida in front of me and I have no idea,” the passenger said.
According to Flight Aware, the plane had taken off earlier on Tuesday from Marsh Harbour International Airport in the Bahamas.
The aircraft was occupied by the pilot and two passengers, a US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) news release said.
Officials have not identified any of them.
As the plane flew over Florida, controller Christopher Flores, speaking calmly, told the passenger to “maintain wings level and try to follow the coast, either north or southbound.”
Twin controls enable a Cessna 208 to be steered from the front passenger seat.
Minutes passed before controllers located the plane, which by then was heading north over Boca Raton.
Then the man’s voice seemed to fade, so the controller in Fort Pierce asked for the passenger’s cellphone number to enable controllers at Palm Beach International Airport to communicate with him more clearly.
Air traffic controller Robert Morgan, a 20-year veteran, took over at that point, talking the passenger down to a safe landing.
Morgan is a certified flight instructor with experience piloting Cessna aircraft, the FAA said.
“Kudos to the new pilot,” one controller told him after the plane smoothly wheeled down the tarmac.
Rescue workers assisted the original pilot, officials said.
Neither passenger had any injuries.
Officials did not immediately say what caused the pilot to fall ill.
Morgan said in a video released by the FAA that he was just doing his job, but at a higher level than he thought he would have to do it.
“We’ve never had anything like that,” Morgan said. “I felt like I was in a movie.”
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
Former Chinese ministers of national defense Wei Fenghe(魏鳳和) and Li Shangfu (李尚福) were both sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve over graft charges, state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, underscoring the severity of the purge in the military. The armed forces have been one of the main targets of a broad corruption crackdown ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) after coming to power in 2012. The purges reached the elite Rocket Force, which oversees nuclear weapons as well as conventional missiles, in 2023. Earlier this year they escalated further, resulting in the removal of the top general in
New Zealand is open to expanding its frigate fleet beyond its current two vessels, with New Zealand Minister of Defence Chris Penk saying “no options are off the table” as the government weighs buying new warships from Japan or the UK. The government yesterday said it is looking to replace its two aging Anzac-class frigates, which were both commissioned almost 30 years ago. The UK’s Type 31 and Japan’s Mogami-class warships are the options under consideration. Speaking in an interview, Penk said there is potential to increase the number of frigates the nation purchases. “We need a certain amount of capability as a
The Philippine Coast Guard yesterday said it deployed aircraft to issue radio warnings to a Chinese research ship in a disputed area of the South China Sea “swarming” with vessels from Beijing’s so-called maritime militia. The research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 33 (向陽紅33), which is capable of supporting submersible craft, was operating near a reef in the contested Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), which Taiwan also claims, the Philippine Coast Guard said. The Chinese ship was deploying a service boat toward the Spratly’s Iroquois Reef on Wednesday when it was spotted by a coast guard plane, “confirming ongoing unauthorized [marine scientific research]
RSS