How do I fly this thing?
Imagine you are one of the passengers in a small prop plane flying back to Florida. It is a nice day and the trip had been uneventful until the pilot sitting next to you passes out. The plane banks hard and starts descending… You and you partner pull the pilot out of the seat and take over yourself, of course. What would you do next? This passenger took the headset and radioed anyone to try to get some advice on how to fly the plane. According to LiveATC.net audio, the passenger told air traffic control: “I’ve got a serious situation here. My pilot has gone incoherent and I have no idea how to fly the airplane.” He is out.” The air traffic controller asked the passenger what his position was. He replied: “I have no idea. I see the coast of Florida in front of me and I have no idea.” “Try to follow the coast either north or southbound,” the controller said. “We’re trying to locate you.” After four minutes, the passenger asked: “Have you guys located me? I can’t even get my nav screen to turn on. It has all the information on it. You guys have any ideas on that?” Fortunately, the local air traffic control tower had an flight instructor on staff and they called him to the tower to coach the passenger. “Try to hold the wings level and see if you can start descending for me, push forward on the controls and descend at a very slow rate.”
The instructor knew of the plane, but had never flown that particular version. He calmly talked to the man while scrambling to find a picture of the plane’s dashboard in order to relay instructions. In the meantime, Air traffic control located the plane, which was off Boca Raton and cleared the runway for the landing. The reports said that a flight controller talked the passenger through the landing and told him to “follow the coast” to get to Palm Beach International Airport. The two men worked together pretty smoothly and eventually they got the plane lined up with the runway. In video obtained by CNN, the plane can be seen landing slowly and smoothly. In a separate recording, another air traffic controller can be heard telling pilots: “You just witnessed a couple of passengers land that plane.” The unconscious pilot was taken to the hospital and the passengers went back to work.
Instructor Funnies
On the first day of my flying lessons, I looked down nervously and asked my instructor,
what are all these buttons for?
He said, Those are to keep your shirt closed.
If helicopters are so safe, how come there are no vintage/classic helicopter fly-ins?
The three worst things to overhear from the cockpit:
The second officer says, “Oh shit!”
The first officer says, “I have an idea!”
The captain say, “Hey, watch this!”
I am sorry about the landing ladies and gentlemen, the pilot will now take over.
Birthdays on May 13th
1993 – Debby Ryan, 1987 – Candice King, 1986 – Lena Dunham, 1922 – Bea Arthur
1950 – Stevie Wonder, 1992 – Tommy Dorfman, 1985 – Iwan Rheon, 1914 – Joe Lewis