Student pilot makes emergency landing after instructor blacks out
 

Student pilot makes emergency landing after instructor blacks out

A trainee pilot having his first flying lesson in a two-seater aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing at Perth's Jandakot Airport in Western Australia on Saturday afternoon after realizing his flight instructor blacked out mid-flight.

Max Sylvester, a student pilot in his 30s, contacted air traffic control an hour into his lesson to inform them his pilot, New Zealand-born Robert Mollard, was unconscious, as the trainee's wife and three children watched him from the ground.

The operator was heard asking Sylvester if he knew how to fly the two-seat Cessna 152 airplane, to which he replied that it was his first lesson.

"He's leaning over my shoulder, I'm trying to keep him up but he keeps falling down," Sylvester can be heard telling the controller, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

In a scene out of a movie, the controller kept Sylvester calm while explaining some basics about reducing the small plane's speed before getting into the hard part, landing.

"You're doing a really great job. I know this is really stressful. But you're going to do an amazing job and we're going to help you get down to the ground. Have you landed any aircraft before?" the controller asked.

"No I haven't," Sylvester responded.

With help from the ground, he made a few passes before landing safely an hour later to the delight of Chuck McElwee, owner of Air Australia International, who had been watching fearfully with the family of Sylvester. The instructor was taken to the hospital in serious, but stable, condition.

"She was a rock, let me tell you, she held it together all the way along the line," McElwee said of Sylvester's wife. The only thing that we worried about was after...he was on an adrenaline high. We told his wife not to let him drive...until he had calmed down."

McElwee said it was the first time in his 28 years of running the flying school that an incident like this had happened.

"This could have gone way, way bad," he said.

Thankfully, due to the nerves of Sylvester and guidance from air traffic control, a potential disaster was averted.

"Well, my flight instructor did say I was the best student he'd had," Sylvester said.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/studen...tor-blacks-out

Here's a couple videos of the actual chat between the Air Traffic Controller and the student. There is subtitles so it's easy to follow what's happening

And it has a happy ending :angel:

He pulled it off, I know guys with Commercial Tickets that fly worse than him. :Jeff '79:


Landing a Cessna is pretty easy.

Downwind leg, 2000 RPM, you can introduce 10 degrees of flaps here if you wish, just correct with a some nose down trim. (Plane will want to climb, you have increased the surface area of the wing )

At 45 degrees from the numbers, 1700 RPM, establish the Base Leg. On the base, you can introduce 20 degrees of flaps if you wish. Again, nose down trim for the ballooning effect.

Base to final, it's all sight picture and feeling. (Utilize the VASI/PAPI if available) Start reducing throttle...Power for altitude, Pitch for airspeed. Introduce your last notch, or notches of flaps (30 or 40 degrees depending on the model). Again, power for altitude, pitch for airspeed.

Keep the airplane at about 70 knots on final. Controls will feel a bit sloppier and "mushy" at lower speeds and full flap configuration. Subtle corrections are all that is needed.

Chop power above the threshold. Keep the nose on Center Line with your Rudder Pedals. Flair. Voila. When you get really good at it, you don't even bother with the standard procedure bullcrap, you just fly the plane.

It's a little more complicated than that, but not really. Hats off to the guy though for not knowing shit and pulling it off. :seasix:

JFC, he greased that fuggin landing. :funnier:

We need to hire this guy. :Jeff '79:

He seemed to pick up quickly what needed to be done and did it. :yesnod:

Some 40 years ago, when I was about that age, I went up with a friend in his 152 went up several time in fact, but the last time it was a tad windy up there, he went to go right, plane went left, he did what ever and plane still went left, tried it again, gave up, turned around and landed.....he was dead silent on the trip, when he went silent from the usual banter, I just shut up and puckered my ass.....

:dance:

He was a fellow Lionel train collector.....

last I heard, he had even MORE of them, as prices are falling like mad....

:leaving:

Last winter I covered a gigantic crash on PCH in Malibu. It was a VERY windy day. Took off with winds steady out of the North at about 30 knots with gusts into the high 30's. The turbulence was FIERCE.

We got on station and were able to essentially hover. Pointed the nose into the wind, chopped power and just basically stayed put. Ground speed was probably 10 or 15 knots. Weird sensation in an airplane.

If your pilot went down for the count, do you think you could land the plane?

Enlisted gunner (E-5) had to fly a Huey helicopter back to its base under fire after the pilot was killed and the co-pilot was mortally wounded during Vietnam War.

article with pictures

https://buffalonews.com/2018/10/29/t...ot-was-killed/

A nasty crosswind would have made his day even more of a challenge though. All in all, he did a fine job.:seasix:

Learn to fly or die trying.

Airplane, no problem. If I wasn't lazy, I'd could get my ticket right now. No interest though.

Helicopter, NFW.

Shit man, I watched a guy with 1k+hours lose it in a mild crosswind and crash an airplane.

He ****ed up though. I'm very Happy to be alive.

I absolutely want to fly a helicopter before I die. I literally have dreams about it.:yesnod: