Pilot passes out during flight forcing inexperienced passenger to land the plane

What would you do if the pilot of your plane passed out during mid-flight? Well, that’s exactly what happened to these passengers. The situation seemed like a scene out of a movie and the ending was nothing short of a miracle.

The disastrous flight

The pilot was manning a Cessna 208 when he suddenly fell unconscious due to a ‘possible medical issue’. Soon after the incident put passengers into a panic however, one passenger named Darren Harrison remained calm and immediately contacted Robert Morgan, a certified flight instructor.

Morgan reported to CNN that Harrison had no flying experience but ‘had been around aviation and seen other pilots fly’. The flight instructor guided Harrison throughout the whole process of landing the plane and observed how remarkably calm the inexperienced man was.

Miracle landing

Although it was a serious situation and all parties involved were very stressed, the result turned out to be nothing short of a miracle,considering all the odds. While listening to Morgan’s instructions carefully, Harrison managed to land the plane safely eight miles out from Palm Beach International. Morgan was immensely relieved after the safe landing of the wayward plane. He said to CNN:

I felt like I was going to cry then, because I had so much adrenaline built up, I was really happy that it worked out and that nobody got hurt.

As reported by The Guardian, in a British Airline Pilots' Association survey of 500 commercial pilots, conducted by ComRes in 2013:

56% admitted to having fallen asleep on the flight deck, with 29% of those having woken to find the other pilot asleep. The vast majority, 84%, said they believed their abilities had been compromised by tiredness in the past six months.

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