Passenger lands plane in Fla. after pilot dies

Nearly an interesting piece of data on the simmer-landing-an-airliner
question. The pilot of a King Air had a seizure, and the plane was then
landed by one of his passengers:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...nds-plane_N.ht
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However, the punch line is that the passenger was *also* a pilot, albeit
lacking the proper endorsements for a King Air, so the question of a
layman successfully handling things remains unknown. They *did* find a
person familiar with the airplane to help him land it. The controller
called a friend who knew about King Airs and helped talk the guy down.
But I can only assume that the directions being given assumed that the
pilot-passenger would know where to find things, since there would be no
guarantee that the panel would be identical.

An interesting story, anyway. I sure would hate to be the only other
rated pilot on board a King Air whose pilot had just passed out.

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon