Pilot in a Cessna becomes incapacitated.
Passenger radios for help.
Air traffic controller gives instructions to passenger.
Passenger lands plane.
Wow.
Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up drinking.
Surely you’re not . . . never mind.
The Pilot must have had Fish for Dinner.
Good luck. We’re all counting on you.
Yes, I am.
Regards,
Shirley
Yes, yes, I remember. I had lasagna.
A rare victory for FloridaMan!
You hear about this sort of thing occasionally with airliners, but those have so much automation that they can almost (not quite, but almost) land themselves, in good conditions. Cessnas are, as I understand it, much more manual.
An actual serious post (I know, I’ll save you the trouble… surely I can’t be). When I saw “Cessna” in the OP I pictured something like a Cessna 172, probably one of the simplest planes to fly. So I thought yeah, a passenger could probably land that with some instructions. But I see from the article that it was actually a 208. Still single engined, but a turboprop rather than a piston engine. And a bit bigger. And I assume probably a variable pitch prop. So my question for any pilots here – how much more complicated is it to land a Cessna 208 compared to a 172?
If anything a turboprop is easier to operate than a piston engine. The variable pitch isn’t a major issue as it’s an automatic system that varies the prop pitch to maintain the set RPM. A piston engine has a mixture control which can be more critical if mishandled.
Note I haven’t actually flown a Cessna 208 (biggest I ever “manipulated the controls” on was a 206) but it isn’t really more complicated. The difference is that in the bigger, heavier plane speeds are higher and control responsiveness lower. So harder to get yourself into trouble, but once in trouble harder to get out of it. Landing speeds are also higher (from Wikipedia stall speed 70 mph vs 54 in the 172) which makes things like lining up on the runway correctly more difficult. Less time to do everything you need to do.
The controllers would have cleared everybody else out of his way, so it would have been a long straight in approach to stabilize and get it right. Looking at the videos he bounced it just a little. Certainly many of my student landings were worse. Good job all round.
Best case is still air or light steady winds in the same direction as the runway. That is the least complex situation for the pilot and those instructing them. Must have been optimal situation as there seems to have been little drama.
Also a smaller plane needs less runway. So touching down late is not as much an issue.
Still a great thing to pull off. The pilot seems to be someone with good feel and hand eye coordination. Good self control too.
I think is was important to get that pilot to the hospital.
A hospital? What is it?
The passenger-turned-pilot did everything right. He didn’t panic. He called for help. He followed directions.
Being a single-engine helped, less complication than with a multi-engine.
Weather looked great.
Lucky to have an ATC with some flying/instructing experience.
ATC of course got everyone out of his way and helped him set up for a landing.
Good job by all involved, but especially the passenger who took over.
Its a big white building with patients but that’s not important right now.
You’ve got to hope that in a TV interview with the plucky passenger someone has the balls to ask him if he likes gladiator films.
Or about his drinking problem.
I saw someone dubbed him ‘Sully of the Cessna’, which is cool in my book.
Wow, good job! No experience flying, although he sounded like he knew his way around a cockpit and - who knows? - might’ve had a go at flying before, informally and with a conscious pilot next to him.
Yeah, I had that experience once. The PIC (my brother) took off, then showed me how to make minor course and altitude corrections and handed it off to me. “Follow Hway 90 and keep the same altitude.” Easy. In no way, could I have imagined actually landing.