The incident took plane onboard a small Cessna plane. (Representative Photo)
Many of us have seen in movies that a passenger with no flying experience is able to land a plane at the airport. But something like this happened at the Florida airport on May 10 (Tuesday).
The man took charge of the plane after the pilot became incapacitated, according to CNN.
The publication further reported that the man told the air traffic control (ATC) that he has “no idea” how to fly a plane.
“I’ve got a serious situation here,” the unidentified passenger said in the audio, according to the CNN report. “My pilot has gone incoherent, and I have no idea how to fly the airplane.”
The ATC replied, asking for the position of the aircraft. The staff there began providing the passenger with instructions about how to land the plane.
“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 ATC said, as per the transcript of the audio carried by the CNN. “Try to follow the coast, either north or southbound. We’re trying to locate you.”
The single-engine Cessna 208 private plane was carrying two people apart from the pilot, the report further said. The ATC received the panic call when the plane was near Southern Florida.
It eventually touched down in Palm Beach International Airport in Florida.
LiveATC.net, where the CNN took the transcript from, said that another ATC staffer told other planes what unfolded.
“You just witnessed a couple of passengers land that plane,” the tower operator can be heard telling an American Airlines pilot waiting to take off for Charlotte, North Carolina.
It is still not know what happened to pilot, but the CNN quoted the other two people on the small plane as saying that he had some “medical issue”.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has launched an investigation into the incident.