0 time passenger lands plane (Cessna Caravan)

donjohnston said:
I hadn't thought of that. 2015 Caravans are going for around 2 million. Add in the lawsuits from the two passengers families and I think the owner (or their insurance company) owes him a lot more than free beer for life. :D
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Starting with a complete flight training course, including an instrument ticket.
 
Possible he’s just a simulator pilot and knew some basics.
 
Bonchie said:
Possible he’s just a simulator pilot and knew some basics.
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That's what I'm thinking although his vernacular seems to indicate not much familiarity. Landing is counter-intuitive with pitch controlling airspeed and power altitude. Unless there was zero wind, smooth air and trim just happened to be perfectly appropriate, I just don't know how this guy put the plane down safely. Family members of mine were quick to point out to me how piloting is apparently not that hard :)
 
Mahneuvers said:
That's what I'm thinking although his vernacular seems to indicate not much familiarity. Landing is counter-intuitive with pitch controlling airspeed and power altitude. Unless there was zero wind, smooth air and trim just happened to be perfectly appropriate, I just don't know how this guy put the plane down safely. Family members of mine were quick to point out to me how piloting is apparently not that hard :)
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I'm wondering if some of the terms and understanding we read on the radio transcript isn't stuff the controller/CFI or the pilot helped point out. The pilot may have very well been partially conscious, just incapacitated enough to not fly the plane. Some things said indicate some familiarity, while others sound like non-pilot lingo.
 
Darren Harrison was the pilot.

That CFI needs to endorse a logbook for Mr. Harrison, but has to figure out the entry. It will be a strange one. And there needs to be a first solo ceremony too.
 
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Piperonca said:
Darren Harrison was the pilot.

That CFI needs to endorse a logbook for Mr. Harrison, but has to figure out the entry. It will be a strange one. And there needs to be a first solo ceremony too.
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When he actually does solo... since he managed to land with passengers this time around.
 
Alright folks, we have many aviation officials and authorities in POA: someone has to know what to enter in Harrison’s logbook.

Maybe he gets to log PIC.
 
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Palmpilot said:
I don't see any indication that they confirmed that he had no flying experience. The wording is the same as in the first news article posted in this thread, so they could just be making the same assumption that the other news outlets are making.
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There's a lot missing from this story.
 
This story has been missing a lot since the beginning. The fact that it's not filling in by now only makes the "facts" less likely.
 
I am VERY skeptical of this story. Expecting to see someone move to monetize it soon.
 
I Fly Low 'n Slow said:
I am VERY skeptical of this story. Expecting to see someone move to monetize it soon.
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I guess when the GoPro video shows up on Youtube, we will all know the truth.

I'm less skeptical personally. He wouldn't be the first. If you watch the video of his landing, it wasn't the prettiest landing ever. Fortunately the Caravan is stout and can take an abusive landing. Its also a pretty simple aircraft to fly and operate. While at times he may have exhibited some knowledge or understanding of aviation and flying, at other times phrases and things he used were completely the opposite of anything even a student pilot would know to say. As I said before, its entirely possible the pilot was still conscious enough to help coach, or he was picking up on instruction from ATC that perhaps isn't in the audio available. Others have even said that maybe the pilot was pointing stuff out to him earlier in the flight, such as the altimeter and other controls.
 
The 80 year old woman landed a King Air after her husband went tango uniform. I suspect the will to survive makes one figure out stuff pretty quick. The 80 year old wife did bugger the King Air up a bit but, as they say, "It was a good landing."
 
midwestpa24 said:
I guess when the GoPro video shows up on Youtube, we will all know the truth.

I'm less skeptical personally. He wouldn't be the first. If you watch the video of his landing, it wasn't the prettiest landing ever. Fortunately the Caravan is stout and can take an abusive landing. Its also a pretty simple aircraft to fly and operate. While at times he may have exhibited some knowledge or understanding of aviation and flying, at other times phrases and things he used were completely the opposite of anything even a student pilot would know to say. As I said before, its entirely possible the pilot was still conscious enough to help coach, or he was picking up on instruction from ATC that perhaps isn't in the audio available. Others have even said that maybe the pilot was pointing stuff out to him earlier in the flight, such as the altimeter and other controls.
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I'm not skeptical of the landing. I'm skeptical of his completely lack of experience.
 
Daleandee said:
The 80 year old woman landed a King Air after her husband went tango uniform. I suspect the will to survive makes one figure out stuff pretty quick. The 80 year old wife did bugger the King Air up a bit but, as they say, "It was a good landing."
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There have been several talk-down landings according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk-down_aircraft_landing
The one with the 80 year old was impressive since she was dealing with an additional handicap of two different 'controllers' at the same time.
 
EdFred said:
I did a make a wish flight for a kid with cancer and cerebral palsy. Was so busy with the tour of the area, I forgot to let him fly the plane like I said I would until we were in pattern. I gave him a quick and dirty of things, and had him fly the pattern final, and landing. I never touched the controls except throttle until we were on the ground. Maybe it's just that anyone can fly a Cessna. (it was a Cardinal)
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I quite frequently let new students fly all through the landing even on discovery flights if they want to. What I find is they often initially do much better landings than they do after they have few hours and have to start thinking about what they are doing to make the airplane do what they want. They instinctively just tend to put in reasonably good control inputs, until they have to start understanding what they are actually doing:) They actual do what most of us do, just move the controls until the plane does what we think it should. It is that in-between phase of just doing it, to refining it to where we understand what we are doing that tends to be problematic for students.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
Didn't "Lady be Good" pretty much land herself, too? I think the moral here is that planes land themselves in the desert or Kansas. Not so much where there are trees or mountains around. So we should move all the airports to the midwest. For safety.
 
Piperonca said:
There have been several talk-down landings according to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk-down_aircraft_landing
The one with the 80 year old was impressive since she was dealing with an additional handicap of two different 'controllers' at the same time.
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This 44 minutes simulation video with the original air-to-air communication audio is really nerve-wracking. Gas ran dry on the right engine, this 80-year-old lady tried multiple times, almost crashed but finally landed this very difficult airplane at the last minute. It is worth watching.

 
What about those world renowned doctors in Oklahoma city who work for the FAA I thought they are suppose to prevent this?? They spend months combing peoples medical history before they make their decisions.
 
Watching interview on GMA. The initial dive sounds pretty hairy. Best part was him taking the headset off the pilot and realizing they had torn the jack plugs off. He did a fine job of remaining calm and thinking his way through the problem.

He explicitly stated no stick time and never played a flight sim.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Watching interview on GMA. The initial dive sounds pretty hairy. Best part was him taking the headset off the pilot and realizing they had torn the jack plugs off. He did a fine job of remaining calm and thinking his way through the problem.

He explicitly stated no stick time and never played a flight sim.
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What's GMA and do you have a link?
 
With no other info and only my own instinct: I'm calling BS on this entire thing. His landing was perfect and how in the world would he have known even how to keep the plane going straight (steering with feet versus the yoke as any non pilot would do). He was insanely calm when he called up initially. Then I saw him interviewed on all the news channels and the guy is out of central casting for the studley "thrown into a heroic situation/I knew that it was life or death at that moment" conversation. Methinks there is a LOT more going on here.
 
mattaxelrod said:
With no other info and only my own instinct: I'm calling BS on this entire thing. His landing was perfect and how in the world would he have known even how to keep the plane going straight (steering with feet versus the yoke as any non pilot would do). He was insanely calm when he called up initially. Then I saw him interviewed on all the news channels and the guy is out of central casting for the studley "thrown into a heroic situation/I knew that it was life or death at that moment" conversation. Methinks there is a LOT more going on here.
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If it was fake, it would have been exposed when the pilot was taken to the hospital.
 
Palmpilot said:
If it was fake, it would have been exposed when the pilot was taken to the hospital.
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That's only half of it. My wife has not a second of training as far as the media could find out about, but she could probably land that plane pretty well and claim to have no exprience.

Of course, to your point, the "hero" would have to have decided to lie about that when the situation started, which seems, well, interesting.

But there's something still off about all this. where is the information about the pilot? Did they actually go to the hospital? What hospital? What was the problem? Was it something "fakeable"?

There just happened to be one passenger on board, and they just happened to be able to fly a nearly perfect approach and landing with not one bit of experience.
 
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