‘My pilot has gone incoherent.’ How a passenger was able to land a plane in Florida
We are learning more about how a man with no flying experience was able to safely land a small plane at Palm Beach International Airport Tuesday afternoon after the pilot became incapacitated.
The miracle came with the help of air traffic controller Robert Morgan, who wasn’t even supposed to be at the airport that day.
Morgan told WPBF News that around noon, he was on a break reading a book working a shift on his day off when a coworker yelled that an inexperienced passenger was flying a plane after the pilot became “incoherent.”
The plane — which according to FAA records is registered to Beach Amphibian LLC in Connecticut — was a Cessna 208 Caravan heading to Palm Beach International Airport from Marsh Harbour, Bahamas.
“I’ve got a serious situation here,” the passenger told Morgan, according to a log of the call released by the local TV station. “My pilot has gone incoherent. I have no idea how to fly the airplane but I am.”
Morgan’s know-how was needed, pronto.
“I knew the plane was flying like any other plane,” said the Jupiter resident, who is also an FAA certified flight instructor. “I just had to keep him calm, point him to the runway and tell him how to reduce the power so he could descend to land.”
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To better help the man at around 5,000 feet in the air, Morgan printed out a layout of the cockpit of the Cessna to walk him through the controls. Video provided to the station shows the Cessna gliding in with emergency crews on the runway.
“I said, ‘Alright, we are going to get you to a runway, what do you see now?’ He said he was just passing the shoreline near Boca,” Morgan said. “Before I knew it, he said, ‘I’m on the ground, how do I turn this thing off?’ “
What Morgan and the passenger did was beyond awesome, Jet Blue pilot Justin Dalmolin told WBPF.
“The level of difficulty that this person had to deal with in terms of having zero flight time to fly and land a single-engine turbine aircraft is absolutely incredible,” said Dalmolin, who said his flight was held in the air while the passenger-now-pilot was being guided down.
Palm Beach County Fire Rescue said crews responded to the airport and one patient was taken to the hospital.
“We are incredibly proud of the heroism shown by all parties involved in yesterday’s incident ending at PBI,” Lacy Larson, the airport’s spokeswoman, said Wednesday in an email. “We are grateful for the outcome and wish everyone the best.”
The person’s condition was not released and the passenger’s identity was not disclosed Wednesday, but we do know that he has a growing family.
“It felt really good to help somebody,” said Morgan, who added that he and the passenger met on the tarmac after the ordeal. “He told me that he couldn’t wait to get home and hug his pregnant wife.”
Miami Herald staff writers Omar Rodríguez Ortiz and Carli Teproff contributed to this report.
This story was originally published May 11, 2022 at 12:49 PM.
