Passenger Lands Airplane in Florida After Pilot Dies

The plane left Marco Island Sunday evening, headed for Jackson, Mississippi. The pilot checked in with the Miami air control tower as he left the airspace of Marco controllers. They responded as he engaged the auto-pilot mechanism and climbed to nearly 10,000 feet, at which point the Marco air traffic controllers lost contact. Federal Aviation Administration officials have not released the pilot’s name or cause of death.

Movies have made dramatic fare over pilots dying in mid-air for years, but the reality of the occurrence is one people would not wish to confront, since finding someone on board who can “take over” is a roll of the dice, at best. The passenger in question had 20 years experience flying, and was license for single-engine aircraft – but had never flown a luxury King Air.

The ground controllers weren’t about to quibble over certifications when a new voice came over the radio, saying the pilot was no longer conscious – though none of them had experience with the aircraft, either. One did some quick thinking and called a friend he knew in Connecticut who was rated to fly the King Air, and knew the hardware and maneuvering capabilities.

After about 20 minutes of relaying instructions from that pilot through to the cockpit of the troubled flight, the group avoided tragedy by disengaging the autopilot and guiding the descent of the King Air onto a runway. Five other passengers on the plane remained safe.

Of course, the controllers had to contact and monitor many other airplanes at the same time, since other flight traffic was quite busy. Steven Wallace, a representative for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association in Miami said no airplanes were delayed or redirected while controllers assisted the King Air landing. He did, however, note with some bitter irony that the FAA had recently forced the controllers to take a pay cut.