Pretty impressive job by all, especially the passenger managing to keep the poise

https://www.wjcl.com/article/florida-pa ... e/39959657

Looks like this one

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N333LD

From the the video, it appears the passenger did a great job. Well done to all.

I'm sure most of us have imagined what we would do in a similar situation!

More details being reported out of local Palm Beach news outlets.

https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/new ... 728396002/

https://www.wptv.com/news/region-c-palm ... ical-issue

https://www.wpbf.com/article/pilot-reac ... t/39959555

https://cbs12.com/newsletter-daily/pass ... ert-morgan

Video in Twitter in case the above links don’t work:

https://twitter.com/loveworld_peopl/sta ... EjmeNhte_g

This is amazing, and gave me chills. Has anyone heard any updates on the condition of the pilot? It says he was incoherent, which might mean he was still conscious? Maybe a stroke? I have been trying to Google info, but unable to find anything.

Every article I've seen says that ATC "talked him down". Most ATC know very little about flying an aircraft, so unless they just happen to have an ATC person familiar with the Caravan, I suspect they got someone in there who knew how to operate it.

In any case - a great job by all!

I like how its reported that it was a small plane. The Caravan is not a small plane! Such a great story, though.

barney captain wrote:

Every article I've seen says that ATC "talked him down". Most ATC know very little about flying an aircraft, so unless they just happen to have an ATC person familiar with the Caravan, I suspect they got someone in there who knew how to operate it.

There was a controller on duty who is a CFI, though he had never flown a C208. He pulled up online documentation for the C208 and talked the passenger through everything.

As most of the news entries above are "not available in my region" (I guess I would need a VPN...), I searched and found this:

http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2022/05/c ... ident.html

I cannot say if that material is part of the above links, so I am sorry if that is redundant. In any case, I found this puzzling in many regards (what does it mean for the pilot to be "incoherent" ? how come the ATC instructs the passenger to follow the coast northbound and the flightaware track seems to be southbound ? is looking for a cell phone number standard procedure while the plane is above the sea and did it even work ?).

Incredible story anyway.

Great story, happy ending...

Iif this had to happen, it couldn't have happened in an easier aircraft to land.

It is still a CESSNA...

Helluva job!! Wow! Great to hear.

barney captain wrote:

Every article I've seen says that ATC "talked him down". Most ATC know very little about flying an aircraft, so unless they just happen to have an ATC person familiar with the Caravan, I suspect they got someone in there who knew how to operate it.

In any case - a great job by all!

A fairly high percentage of ATCs have some flight training, all the way up to commercial pilot certificates. I’m this case the controller was a CFI.

That doesn’t mean the controller at the time of the first call was the one who wound up talking him down. But they will go try to find someone who has experience in a situation like this.

Fantastic job by the controller

Very impressed the other aircraft had the guts to be anywhere near that runway

Very well done. This reminds me of the guy with just a VFR ASEL in the King Air who had his pilot have a massive heart attack on climb and ended up landing the airplane at RSW and noting he had a landing "softer than a baby's be-hind" if I remember correctly. The passenger wasn't a pilot, but had been around people flying and sat up front frequently, so he had some visuals on what he needed to do. The CFI at PBI approach who talked him down did an awesome job working him down and it was a great idea to set him up for a long straight in to a long runway at an airport with good services - just like they did with the King Air guy.

32andBelow wrote:

barney captain wrote:

Every article I've seen says that ATC "talked him down". Most ATC know very little about flying an aircraft, so unless they just happen to have an ATC person familiar with the Caravan, I suspect they got someone in there who knew how to operate it.

In any case - a great job by all!

A fairly high percentage of ATCs have some flight training, all the way up to commercial pilot certificates. I’m this case the controller was a CFI.

That doesn’t mean the controller at the time of the first call was the one who wound up talking him down. But they will go try to find someone who has experience in a situation like this.

Maybe relative to the general population, but most ATCs are not pilots - especially in the US. In this case, however, the ATC who helped him on approach and landing is a CFI and pulled up an instrument panel shot of a Caravan to familiarize himself with the layout and basically instruct from the ground.

FlyingElvii wrote:

Great story, happy ending...

Iif this had to happen, it couldn't have happened in an easier aircraft to land.

It is still a CESSNA...

If you ever saw how easy it is to prop strike a 182, you'd say different. Also, a Citation X is a CESSNA. A 421C is a CESSNA.

Now, a Caravan is pretty forgiving - they are known to handle extremely similarly to an aforementioned 182.

barney captain wrote:

Every article I've seen says that ATC "talked him down". Most ATC know very little about flying an aircraft, so unless they just happen to have an ATC person familiar with the Caravan, I suspect they got someone in there who knew how to operate it.

In any case - a great job by all!

Let's try not to generalise too much. At my facility a large proportion of us have had/still have licenses...

Does anyone have a link to the Live ATC recording?

Spetsnaz55 wrote:

Few Twitter civil aviation pilots are saying it was to good of a landing to not have any experience at all. Maybe flight simming or something?

If he did simming, its never going to be the same. From the recordings he had difficulty trying to figure out where to tune the radios. That tells you much. If you had some simming you might have a bit of an idea where.

This is nothing short of a miracle. Zero time and a great landing by the which the plane was completely intact!

N1120A wrote:

Very well done. This reminds me of the guy with just a VFR ASEL in the King Air who had his pilot have a massive heart attack on climb and ended up landing the airplane at RSW and noting he had a landing "softer than a baby's be-hind" if I remember correctly. The passenger wasn't a pilot, but had been around people flying and sat up front frequently, so he had some visuals on what he needed to do. The CFI at PBI approach who talked him down did an awesome job working him down and it was a great idea to set him up for a long straight in to a long runway at an airport with good services - just like they did with the King Air guy.

32andBelow wrote:

barney captain wrote:

Every article I've seen says that ATC "talked him down". Most ATC know very little about flying an aircraft, so unless they just happen to have an ATC person familiar with the Caravan, I suspect they got someone in there who knew how to operate it.

In any case - a great job by all!

A fairly high percentage of ATCs have some flight training, all the way up to commercial pilot certificates. I’m this case the controller was a CFI.

That doesn’t mean the controller at the time of the first call was the one who wound up talking him down. But they will go try to find someone who has experience in a situation like this.

Maybe relative to the general population, but most ATCs are not pilots - especially in the US. In this case, however, the ATC who helped him on approach and landing is a CFI and pulled up an instrument panel shot of a Caravan to familiarize himself with the layout and basically instruct from the ground.

FlyingElvii wrote:

Great story, happy ending...

Iif this had to happen, it couldn't have happened in an easier aircraft to land.

It is still a CESSNA...

If you ever saw how easy it is to prop strike a 182, you'd say different. Also, a Citation X is a CESSNA. A 421C is a CESSNA.

Now, a Caravan is pretty forgiving - they are known to handle extremely similarly to an aforementioned 182.

No most ATCs are not pilots, but enough are that there is frequently one with some flight training especially during the day when More controllers are on duty.

Big kudos to him. That looked better than some of my high wing aircraft landings!

Spetsnaz55 wrote:

Few Twitter civil aviation pilots are saying it was to good of a landing to not have any experience at all. Maybe flight simming or something?

Adrenaline can do wonders sometimes.
I had read a story about a student pilot with a handful of hours who, on his first solo flight, saw the propeller depart the plane; he did a textbook deadstick landing, that he couldn't even replicate in the following hours of instruction. He knew he had one shot at it, and excelled; it happens.

WayexTDI wrote:

Spetsnaz55 wrote:

Few Twitter civil aviation pilots are saying it was to good of a landing to not have any experience at all. Maybe flight simming or something?

Adrenaline can do wonders sometimes.
I had read a story about a student pilot with a handful of hours who, on his first solo flight, saw the propeller depart the plane; he did a textbook deadstick landing, that he couldn't even replicate in the following hours of instruction. He knew he had one shot at it, and excelled; it happens.

It certainly does. On my 3rd or 4th trip out to do solo pattern work at 19 after getting my solo sign-off, I had just applied takeoff power on a TNG and had the flap handle break clean off and fall to the floor when I went to put the flaps up. Thankfully could feel in my left yoke hand the nose was starting to balloon skyward and thought 'oh shit', applied forward pressure, and salvaged the situation back into a normal takeoff. Let the tower know I was a slow student pilot with stuck flaps on the departure turn and only then did my heart start calming down.

BoatStuck wrote:

Does anyone have a link to the Live ATC recording?

Some audio here, though it doesn't include the instruction on landing

https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local ... ATyyImUmwY

The latter part of the flight instructions were done using the pilots and instructor's cell phones so probably no recording exists. Fantastic job by all involved!

airtechy wrote:

The latter part of the flight instructions were done using the pilots and instructor's cell phones so probably no recording exists. Fantastic job by all involved!

That was good thinking too - less fiddling with radios and just help the guy fly.

airtechy wrote:

The latter part of the flight instructions were done using the pilots and instructor's cell phones so probably no recording exists. Fantastic job by all involved!

Confirmed the controllers cell phone? If it’s a facility phone it’s recorded. But would need to be released

NBC'sToday show with Savannah Guthrie flew down to Lakeland-Linder airport in Florida to interview Darren Harrison, the passenger who landed a Cessna 208 Grand Caravan last week. That interview was broadcast this morning.

For those here who are pilots, the interview will leave you desiring for much more information. Like most morning shows, it is heavy on targeting female audiences at home with children-- and light on how Darren Harrison successfully managed to recover from a dive (at 6,375 fpm and 86 knots beyond Vne according to the flight log) without suffering static overload. Without any flight training, how did he have any knowledge of roll-pitch-power unusual attitude recovery? Additionally the 2015 Cessna Grand Caravan came equipped with a Garmin G1000 avionics suite, which Harrison somehow managed to extract at-least some information from as evidenced by his transmission of a 550 fpm rate of decent. Were past flights in a Cessna 208 sufficient for him to observe cockpit procedures and situational awareness via osmosis from the co-pilot's seat?

Admittedly the Cessna isn't as complex as a Bombardier Challenger 300, shown in the hanger behind Harrison and Guthrie during the interview. But landing a single-engine turboprop intact at KPBI can't be minimized. He was moving along on short-final, high and hot over the threshold, and still managed to plant it on runway 10L and get it stopped before Foxtrot. Despite the considerable excess IAS, there was no wheel barrowing or pilot-induced-oscillation porpoising. From all indication it was a smooth landing! Moreover if one looks at photos of that aircraft on the runway, its prop is in the feather position, the P&W PT6A engine shut-down. Did Harrison memorize the shutdown and securing checklists as well? Remarkable, just remarkable.

A few months from now, don't be surprised if one Darren Harrison has passed his Private Pilot SEL check ride.

32andBelow wrote:

A fairly high percentage of ATCs have some flight training, all the way up to commercial pilot certificates. I’m this case the controller was a CFI.

That doesn’t mean the controller at the time of the first call was the one who wound up talking him down. But they will go try to find someone who has experience in a situation like this.

As a tower/TRACON controller for 32 years I assure you that most controllers are not familiar with flying any type of aircraft. When I retired I would say that out of more than 100 TRACON controllers around 15% had either a private or higher.

Simply put an excellent piece of work by all.

Worth noting, the pilot, who suffered a severe cardiac incident, was just released from the hospital.

IAHFLYR wrote:

32andBelow wrote:

A fairly high percentage of ATCs have some flight training, all the way up to commercial pilot certificates. I’m this case the controller was a CFI.

That doesn’t mean the controller at the time of the first call was the one who wound up talking him down. But they will go try to find someone who has experience in a situation like this.

As a tower/TRACON controller for 32 years I assure you that most controllers are not familiar with flying any type of aircraft. When I retired I would say that out of more than 100 TRACON controllers around 15% had either a private or higher.

Simply put an excellent piece of work by all.

I never said most. I’m just point out in most facilities there’s a couple of pilots. A higher rate then the general population

32andBelow wrote:

I never said most. I’m just point out in most facilities there’s a couple of pilots. A higher rate then the general population

Ok, excuse my translation. The point is not even a "fairly high percentage" is close to the actual numbers. Oh sure some places may have more than others, but I will completely agree with more than a general population.