A pilot is being praised after he asked a passenger to step in to help land a flight after the co-pilot became sick. The passenger happened to be an off-duty pilot.
The co-pilot of a Lufthansa 747 from Newark to Frankfurt started suffering from dizzy spells, headaches and vomiting on November 19 of last year. The 35-year-old co-pilot became sick over Newfoundland. Due to his illness, it was decided that the plane had to make an emergency landing in Dublin to bring the man to the hospital, the Irish Independent reports.
There were 16 crew members and 266 on board the Boeing aircraft. Fortunately one of them was an off-duty pilot. The 46-year-old passenger was qualified to fly a smaller Boeing 767 and worked for another airline. He had 11,000 hours of flying experience.
The Lufthansa pilot checked the man's credentials and asked him to sit in the co-pilot's seat. The captain supervised the off-duty pilot as he monitored the flight status during the emergency landing. The plane landed safely in Dublin without any issues.
The Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) had no issues with the off-duty pilot being asked to help out even though he's used to flying smaller planes.
"Although the aircraft size and the number of engines were dissimilar, nevertheless the same operational philosophy and systems design tend to carry from one aircraft to another within a manufacturer's line of products," the AAIU said according to the Independent. "Consequently this pilot was a good choice and was adequately equipped to provide additional assistance in this situation.
"Incapacitation of a flight crew member is a serious incident and placed the operation outside the certification requirements of a minimum of two qualified pilots to operate the aircraft," AAIU added. "The situation was dealt with in a professional manner by the commander who, assisted by his cabin crew, employed the principles of CRM and located another pilot to assist him."
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