Florida man with no flying experience lands plane
<p dir="ltr">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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Darren Harrison told NBC’s <em>Today </em>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”.</p>
<p dir="ltr"> “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.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">After climbing into the cockpit, Mr Harrison discovered the unconscious pilot and that the plane was diving fast.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“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.”</p>
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<p dir="ltr">He said that thought was “the scariest part of the whole story”.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">What if your pilot became ill and you had to fly the plane? That’s what happened over the ocean, 25 miles from <a href="https://twitter.com/flyPBI?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@flyPBI</a>. 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 <a href="https://t.co/4Hn7JzNKN5">https://t.co/4Hn7JzNKN5</a>. <a href="https://t.co/2KPhpmqG2S">pic.twitter.com/2KPhpmqG2S</a></p>
<p>— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) <a href="https://twitter.com/FAANews/status/1524498223749996544?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 11, 2022</a></p></blockquote>
<p dir="ltr">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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">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”.</p>
<p dir="ltr">He recalled refusing to let fear set in at that moment, with the knowledge that landing the plane was his only choice.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“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.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">Mr Harrison said he had to get home to his wife, Britney, who was seven months pregnant with their first child.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“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’.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">With the help of air traffic controller Robert Morgan, Mr Harrison safely landed the plane at Palm Beach International Airport.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“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.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“That’s when all the emotion set in.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">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”.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The pilot was taken to hospital and is expected to be released this week, according to Mr Harrison.</p>
<p dir="ltr">After landing, Mr Harrison then called his wife, who wasn’t expecting to hear from him so early. </p>
<p dir="ltr">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”.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“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.”</p>
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<p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Twitter</em></p>
