Passenger Lands Plane after Pilot Dies in Flight
An amateur pilot aboard a twin-engine King Air plane landed the aircraft in Florida after the pilot designated to fly it died of yet unknown causes with the plane still in flight.
US Federal Aviation Administration officials confirmed that the pilot died after takeoff from an airport in Naples on Sunday.
The passenger who took over the controls is licensed to fly single-engine planes but had no experience of flying the larger King Air.
An air traffic control official is reported to have helped the passenger safely land the craft, after he relayed to the passenger-pilot instructions he received from a pilot friend in Connecticut, the drama climaxed with the plane landing safely at Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers.
The plane had been headed to Jackson, Mississippi, the name of the dead pilot and six passengers onboard are yet to be made public.
