“I have no idea how to fly the airplane.”
What would you do if you were suddenly placed in a situation where you needed to control a plane? You don’t have flying experience and your plane is diving fast.
That’s what happened to a passenger when their pilot suffered a medical emergency. He had to take the pilot’s place and on his skills rested the fate of everyone in the plane.
Darren Harrison was coming back from his fishing trip when disaster struck.
He took off from the Bahamas and was enjoying what he perceived was a chill trip back home. He even took a photo of him with his feet up on the seat.
But just shortly after taking the photo, their pilot complained about a headache. The pilot stirred in his chair and said that he doesn’t feel good.
The pilot added that he was feeling fuzzy. Harrison, at that point, asked him what they needed to do.
The pilot did not respond.
Harrison was yelling as they tried to wake up the unconscious pilot. And when he looked out the window, it was then that he realized that they were going for a nosedive.
Harrison knew he had to do something or they will die. Trusting his instincts, he reached over the pilot and grabbed the controls. He slowly pulled the controls towards him to try and increase their altitude.
But there was another problem, Harrison didn’t know how to fly a plane.
Meanwhile, air traffic controller Robert Morgan, a certified flight instructor, wasn’t supposed to be at work when he marched into the control room.
“I rush over there and I walk in and the room is really busy … and they’re like, ‘Hey, this pilot’s incapacitated. The passengers are flying the plane. They have no flying experience,” Morgan told CNN.
Being a certified flight instructor, Morgan was the perfect candidate to help Harrison.
“He was really calm,” Morgan said. “He said, ‘I don’t know how to fly. I don’t know how to stop this thing if I do get on the runway.'”
NEW: CNN identifies Darren Harrison (right) as the passenger who landed a Cessna Caravan at PBI when his pilot became incapacitated.
Air traffic controller & flight instructor Robert Morgan (left) helped guide Harrison “one step at a time” using a photo of the Caravan cockpit. pic.twitter.com/9JhUhViezK
— Pete Muntean (@petemuntean) May 11, 2022
There was another challenge, however. The aircraft, which was a Cessna 208, is something Morgan never had the chance to fly. But he can’t just leave Harrison to his fate. Morgan pulled up a picture of the plane’s instrument panel and started guiding Harrison through the process.
Morgan began relaying instructions to Harrison.
“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 air traffic controller can be heard telling the fledgling pilot in LiveATC audio.
When Morgan saw that Harrison was doing a fairly good job in handling the plane, he made a crucial decision to guide him to Palm Beach International Airport where the landing area was bigger and well-equipped.
Together, they successfully landed the Cessna without incident.
“I felt like I was going to cry then, because I had so much adrenaline built up,” Morgan said to CNN. “I was really happy that it worked out and that nobody got hurt.”
The two shortly made a reunion and shared a big hug. And as much as people were hailing Morgan as a hero, he only has this to say: “In my eyes, he was the hero. I was just doing my job.”
Watch how an off-duty air traffic controller and a civilian helped land a plan and save lives!
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