0 time passenger lands plane (Cessna Caravan)

He was friends with the owner, a second passenger was friends with the pilot. Yeah, this guy had no experience at all. :rolleyes:

I have no respect for him. He’s a hero for saving the pilots life without lying about it to make it more thrilling.
 
Salty said:
He was friends with the owner, a second passenger was friends with the pilot. Yeah, this guy had no experience at all. :rolleyes:

I have no respect for him. He’s a hero for saving the pilots life without lying about it to make it more thrilling.
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How much of it was a lie that he told, and how much of it was people misinterpreting what he said?

If I had been in his situation, wording things so as to avoid being misinterpreted by the media would be very low on my list of priorities.
 

When the pilot became incapacitated, the plane went into a dive. One of the things I picked up on in this interview is that the passenger who took the controls mentions knowing that if he yanked back on the controls too quickly, it could cause the airplane to stall or overstress the wings, from which I infer that some pilot must have explained that to him at some point.

That was before he was able to establish contact with ATC. I'm guessing that having successfully gotten the plane straight and level without help probably played a role in his sounding calm when he did reach someone on the radio.
 
He says he’s thought about what happens if the pilot becomes incapacitated many times before when he goes on flights like these. So he flies regularly on small planes and I’m guessing he’s been shown the basics before. The other odd thing is they showed a pic of him in the back seat. So as the plane “was in a dive” he was able to get the full sized incapacitated adult out of the front seat, get in the left seat, switch headsets and then get control of the plane. All while someone else was in the right seat.
 
eman1200 said:
He says he’s thought about what happens if the pilot becomes incapacitated many times before when he goes on flights like these. So he flies regularly on small planes and I’m guessing he’s been shown the basics before. The other odd thing is they showed a pic of him in the back seat. So as the plane “was in a dive” he was able to get the full sized incapacitated adult out of the front seat, get in the left seat, switch headsets and then get control of the plane. All while someone else was in the right seat.
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imminent death can be a good motivator
 
eman1200 said:
He says he’s thought about what happens if the pilot becomes incapacitated many times before when he goes on flights like these. So he flies regularly on small planes and I’m guessing he’s been shown the basics before. The other odd thing is they showed a pic of him in the back seat. So as the plane “was in a dive” he was able to get the full sized incapacitated adult out of the front seat, get in the left seat, switch headsets and then get control of the plane. All while someone else was in the right seat.
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In his interview on the Today show, he described how he managed to stop the dive while the pilot was still in his seat.
 
Don't those things have auto pilots? If he has experience in small aircraft, he must have seen somebody sometime punch it on with alt hold and fly with a heading bug...
 
Palmpilot said:

When the pilot became incapacitated, the plane went into a dive. One of the things I picked up on in this interview is that the passenger who took the controls mentions knowing that if he yanked back on the controls too quickly, it could cause the airplane to stall or overstress the wings, from which I infer that some pilot must have explained that to him at some point.

That was before he was able to establish contact with ATC. I'm guessing that having successfully gotten the plane straight and level without help probably played a role in his sounding calm when he did reach someone on the radio.
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After watching that, I am back to thinking there's more to this than we are hearing.
 
luvflyin said:
It sounded like he has some pilot experience. He said "I can't even get my nav screen to turn on. It has all the information on it. You guys have any information on that." He may have not flown a caravan before, but I would be really surprised if he hasn't airplanes before. I think he needed navigational assistance more so than aviating assistance. I'd like to hear a lot more of the tape.
More I think about it, maybe he has done a lot of simulation stuff like on Pilot Edge or VATSIM and has done a lot of talking with ‘controllers’ and flying ‘airplanes’. Wonder what the avionics were in the plane and what auto pilot. The Controller was supposedly a CFI. Did he have Caravan experience? Maybe it really wasn’t all that incredible.
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Yeah. Notice the nice route he took before landing. Even as he was guided by ATC that’s some impressive hand flying.

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I also watched the interview on Good Morning America and thought this is a little too perfect. I mean it’s possible but for a 0 time pilot to be that calm after a scary dive, maybe a dead pilot, GPS out….several thousand feet in the air going a couple hundred miles per hour. If you listen to the audio he’s not even really breathing fast. I mean really! Most people, even trained pilots, would be almost hyperventilating with someone dead or dying in the seat next to them. I have to agree with the doubters on this one. Just my thoughts..
 
Not everyone reacts to emergency situations the same.

I probably sounded calm on the radio for all three of my emergency landings, but then I flared too high for all three. :redface:
 
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Palmpilot said:
Not everyone reacts to emergency situations the same.
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^^this^^

Once on an actual OEI landing I accidentally transmitted on approach something along the lines ''dammit I'm going to miss dinner now...''

I thought I was on the intercom talking to the med crew and trying instill a little confidence in them that nothing will go wrong...
 
Turns out I know someone that knows Darren personally. After we talked, my opinion hasn't changed any.
 
Lot of people agree Darren probably has taken off, and landed that caravan he flown with the owner for 7 years in it. Lesson learned here is ATC should have had a guy in the tower with a handheld who could talk him down the last 100 feet. If it had been a real non pilot flying that last 100 feet could have ended in disaster if it had been someone who had no clue.
 
kell490 said:
Lot of people agree Darren probably has taken off, and landed that caravan he flown with the owner for 7 years in it. Lesson learned here is ATC should have had a guy in the tower with a handheld who could talk him down the last 100 feet. If it had been a real non pilot flying that last 100 feet could have ended in disaster if it had been someone who had no clue.
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Maybe he did get some stick time during those seven years, but there's a lot of gray area between being a non pilot and being a pilot. Based on the accounts of the events, the interviews, and the video of the landing, it appears that he knew some things and not others.
 
I’ve seen that Mr Infallible Gryder has a video on his opinion. Haven’t watched it but those interested could look it up and get The TRUE FACTS, I’m sure.

Cheers
 
X3 Skier said:
I’ve seen that Mr Infallible Gryder has a video on his opinion. Haven’t watched it but those interested could look it up and get The TRUE FACTS, I’m sure.

Cheers
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Gryder’s take. He doesn’t really cover some of the things I thought were a bit fishy though. 1) The fact the pilot knows what a stall is. 2) Why were the displays off? 3) Seemed to understand how a transponder works. 4) Why did he reply that he didn’t know how many passengers were onboard?

 
Velocity173 said:
Gryder’s take. He doesn’t really cover some of the things I thought were a bit fishy though. 1) The fact the pilot knows what a stall is. 2) Why were the displays off? 3) Seemed to understand how a transponder works. 4) Why did he reply that he didn’t know how many passengers were onboard?

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Whilst some of my friends have zero time logged, they also have some flying experience; it was that way with me half-a-century back.
Still, the pilot suffered an aortic dissection (which killed Lucille Ball, John Ritter, George C. Scott, Einstein, among others) and got to the hospital in time, which is awesome.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
Whilst some of my friends have zero time logged, they also have some flying experience; it was that way with me half-a-century back.
Still, the pilot suffered an aortic dissection (which killed Lucille Ball, John Ritter, George C. Scott, Einstein, among others) and got to the hospital in time, which is awesome.
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It is awesome that the pilot survived his medical emergency. Pilot I used to work with had an aortic dissection while at work and was lucky to survive. But the medical situation isn’t what Gryder is getting at. This passenger is being portrayed as having zero flight experience. There’s a huge difference between zero flight experience and zero hours logged. While this passenger has zero hours logged, I’d be willing to bet he has flight experience. Like Gryder stated, I’d say there’s a good chance this guy has flown this aircraft on multiple occasions.
 
Velocity173 said:
It is awesome that the pilot survived his medical emergency. Pilot I used to work with had an aortic dissection while at work and was lucky to survive. But the medical situation isn’t what Gryder is getting at. This passenger is being portrayed as having zero flight experience. There’s a huge difference between zero flight experience and zero hours logged. While this passenger has zero hours logged, I’d be willing to bet he has flight experience. Like Gryder stated, I’d say there’s a good chance this guy has flown this aircraft on multiple occasions.
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Dozens if not hundreds of times actually.
 
Definitely a good landing considering winds 050 @ 10 G 16. Looked like first 1/3 of the runway and on centerline as well.
 
It’s truly unfortunate how cynical some here are.
I guess “zero” experience would need to be clarified. Also remember it was all the news networks that promoted the “zero” word. In all the interviews I’ve seen never does that word come out of his mouth.
Initially there were some here that thought this was a total set-up from the word go. Something similar to the Trevor Jacob’s clown. With subsequent details that have emerged some have had to recant those premature comments.
The guy did an amazing job regardless of what “experience “ he had. He’s not promoting some uboob chanel or any other self serving platform. He seemed like a humble guy that thankfully was willing to share his story.
 
47PILOT said:
He’s not promoting some uboob chanel or any other self serving platform. He seemed like a humble guy that thankfully was willing to share his story.
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Not sure how you missed that his family owns a flooring company in Lakeland. I’ve not listened to 10% of the content he’s been on, and I’ve heard about it 3 times.
 
The news never gets things 100% right. Mostly, they don't even get things even close. And I'm not speaking from a conservative/liberal perspective, I'm just talking about basic simple facts. The times when I've been involved in local stories that went national, where I was involved with the people doing whatever work was newsworthy, the news people mostly got it wrong. It's just what they do. Hell, in emergency response, the first responders usually get the initial facts wrong. The difference is, police and fire know this, and they'll send corrected reports along as the facts develop. So who cares about what the reports are vs the time spent flying.

What I'm pretty sure of - pilot didn't stage having his aorta separate, or whatever happens in that situation. Betting he'd have liked to avoid that. Also pretty sure that the controller/CFI that talked him down did a great job. The only video I've watched on any of this was Juan's interview of the controller, and that was pretty cool.

I think the news people built up the guy who landed the plane as a hero. That's not such a bad thing, who cares. Having a little bit of flight experience and landing a caravan is an achievement. Not stalling it on those turns isn't bad, either. All turned out great. As to knowing about stalls, all you have to do is watch a bunch of aviation videos, or talk about flight risk with a pilot to know about that.

News people are just entertainers. They entertain. Like musicians, except without skills, purpose, or character. Don't let them wind you up.
 
Salty said:
Not sure how you missed that his family owns a flooring company in Lakeland. I’ve not listened to 10% of the content he’s been on, and I’ve heard about it 3 times.
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Makes sense. Let’s crucify him for answering one of if not the most popular question asked of someone.
you gotta come up with something better than that.
 
Albany Tom said:
The news never gets things 100% right. Mostly, they don't even get things even close. And I'm not speaking from a conservative/liberal perspective, I'm just talking about basic simple facts. The times when I've been involved in local stories that went national, where I was involved with the people doing whatever work was newsworthy, the news people mostly got it wrong. It's just what they do. Hell, in emergency response, the first responders usually get the initial facts wrong. The difference is, police and fire know this, and they'll send corrected reports along as the facts develop. So who cares about what the reports are vs the time spent flying.

What I'm pretty sure of - pilot didn't stage having his aorta separate, or whatever happens in that situation. Betting he'd have liked to avoid that. Also pretty sure that the controller/CFI that talked him down did a great job. The only video I've watched on any of this was Juan's interview of the controller, and that was pretty cool.

I think the news people built up the guy who landed the plane as a hero. That's not such a bad thing, who cares. Having a little bit of flight experience and landing a caravan is an achievement. Not stalling it on those turns isn't bad, either. All turned out great. As to knowing about stalls, all you have to do is watch a bunch of aviation videos, or talk about flight risk with a pilot to know about that.

News people are just entertainers. They entertain. Like musicians, except without skills, purpose, or character. Don't let them wind you up.
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Well said
 
Why would it matter if the guy had flown something before, or not? Mentioned that he had a flooring store, or not?
That doesn't take away at all from the great job he did landing the plane.
 
If it was you, and people were misrepresenting the facts about you, wouldn’t you say something?
 
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