Picture it: you’re happily sitting aboard a plane and the pilot falls over unconscious.
It’s the stuff of nightmares and Hollywood movies, but for one Californian, it was all too real.
On what was supposed to be a flight from Las Vegas to Monterrey, the twin-engine aircraft was diverted to Bakersfield before the pilot went into cardiac arrest.
A “brave” female passenger took the helm and received instructions from Kern County air traffic control tower at the airport at Meadows Field, where county airport director Ron Brewster spoke to NBC about the ordeal.
“We were able to get fire, ambulance and everybody on stand-by so as the aircraft came to a stop they were getting medical attention in seconds,” he said.
Audio released by the Kern County Airport Authority captures some of the instructions given to the passenger who was instructed to keep her airspeed at around 132 mph.
Both GNN and Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters have shown that passengers possessing no flight experience whatsoever can be talked into landing a plane successfully.
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The best thing to do in the situation is to get in contact with an air traffic controller.
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The name of the woman has not been released, nor details about how many were on the flight, but Brewster said she was dealing with the tragedy as best she could, referring to the unfortunate ending that the pilot took the 7:30 a.m. non-stop to heaven, and was pronounced dead at the hospital.
WATCH the story below from NBC…
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