Cessna Caravan landed by passenger

[Marty_d]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-12/passenger-lands-plane-in-florida-no-idea-how-to-fly/101059472

 

 

[rgmwa]

Good effort!

[onetrack]

That passengers landing of the C208 is better than many a qualified pilots landing! Surely he must have had some aviation skills he failed to mention? He was pretty cool about it all, he must be Sullys brother!

 

https://www.wpbf.com/article/florida-pbia-lands-safe-passenger-pilot-private-plane/39957179#

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by onetrack

[rgmwa]

In another video he obviously knew where to look for his descent rate and talked about the nav screen, so he had either spent some time around aircraft, or was good at flight sim.

He didn't panic, which was impressive in itself, and saved both of them.

 

[facthunter]

The Controller obtained a copy of the Panel layout and was a qualified Instructor.   Nev

[440032]

Pffftttt....... Every landing I do I have no idea what I'm doing! You don't see me on the news!

 

But aside, yep, this was a remarkable outcome. I find it interesting that somehow the passenger used some flying phrases on the radio eg "I'm passing 6300" (or whatever it was.) No passenger would say that.

[Thruster88]

The one vid I have seen he said "descending 500 feet per minute" so some training or a very good  reader. When I was sixteen with no flying training I believe I could have landed that cessna just from the extensive reading I had done. Successfully taught myself to fly age 21 with zero help and zero issues. The good old days.😎 

[onetrack]

Blanco Lirio has his 0.02c worth of input to this incredible event - and like many, he suspects the passenger must have either had a lot of right front seat experience as a passenger and watched and learnt a lot from previous pilots - or he had a degree of flightsim experience. His knowledge of aviation is above what would be expected from the ordinary passenger who only wants to get from A to B and has no interest in what's going on up front.

 

Further to this, Blanco Lirio reveals that when the pilot initially passed out, the 2 passengers were in the back! - and the Caravan went into a pretty vicious dive, as the pilot crumpled at the controls.

The bloke who took the controls had to haul the unconscious pilot away from the controls, and keep him upright (the 2nd passenger must have helped here) - but more importantly, the passenger who took the controls, had to do an upset recovery!

 

Blanco Lirio says the aircraft reached nearly 300mph GS in the dive right after the pilot collapsed, lost around 3600' in altitude (reaching a descent speed of 6,375' a minute before the passenger arrested it) - and not only did the passenger do a good upset recovery, he regained around 2600' in altitude again, after the recovery. This speaks of either some learnt aviation skills, or a bloke who watched a lot of pilot training videos very carefully.

 

What is pretty amazing is that the VNE of a Caravan is reportedly 175kts, so that "nearly 300mph" GS is a pretty frightening speed to see recorded. It looks like the ol' Caravan is pretty stoutly built.

 

 

 

 

[kgwilson]

Dan Gryder has called this one out. The passenger was a friend of the Pilot and had flown with him probably in the right hand seat on many occasions, possibly in the hundreds of hours. The guy just wanted publicity so didn't say anything about this & is possibly a religious nut case by saying it was God who got him down safely so he knew he wasn't going to die. As Dan says maybe a nice guy but he is a liar.