Air traffic controller guides passenger to safe landing at PBIA after pilot has medical emergency

Precisely. Sadly I think cynicism is the default these days

Asking the "Passenger-in-Control" to push the IDent is one thing, but asking him to change to another frequency is crazy. A small mistake and 'poof' he's gone for good.

I thought the phone number thing was odd. On the other hand, that's something OTHER passengers could have helped with.

Blancorilio said that they used the phone both to communicate and to locate the plane. I think he said they were concerned that the plane was going to get out of range of the radio freq (hence the desire first to switch channels). Once they connected by cell phone, they were able to use duplex and communicate much more effectively.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGKAeXPwka0

(With sincere apologies for the annoying unclickable links in FlightAware squawks...)

Probably to "phone home" after he landed in a field?

There are some things the controller just "has to do". Doesn't mean he thought it was a good idea either!

yah, facts

I’m not sure which search you are referring to here but I have been on enough searches to know that even if you don’t find anything your work was essential. When your in that situation please don’t feel helpless, finding nothing means the aria you searched had nothing to find. If a plane is down finding nothing means the incident commander can eliminate the aria you searched and move resources along, the goal is to find were the plane went down and your efforts helped more then you can imagine. So to you and all involved in any search and rescue operation I say thank you for the time you spent and the work you put into it.
BTW we have a little boy missing in Northern Saskatchewan right now so if your not busy and can afford to come out his family and community would be more then happy to have you.

Thank You

I was thinking of “Airplane” but Airport 75 was a great movie in it’s day. Have you ever seen Zero Hour from the 60s? I saw it on late night movies in the 70s and Airplane borrows a lot of it’s plot from that old movie.

Seems like you'll also want a cell phone transcript, right?

..."FlightAware data is pretty smooth..."

I looked at it and his vertical excursions were anything but. His turns looked pretty bad too. They are extremely lucky to be on the ground in one piece.

Everything aligned positively for them. Radar found them in time. Didn't lose comms. They had enough fuel. He was directed to the longest runway in the area. There was no crosswind - a stable wind on the nose. And a flight instructor / FAA controller just happened to be at that airport at the right time.

On the other hand, reading the article as given, all parties were trying to figure out where he was. If you have no experience in finding bearings in the air, it totally makes sense to want to use the equipment on the plane to do it for you. That part doesn't at all seem odd to me.

dmanuel… if passenger has a YouTube channel, then you may be correct.

Meh - I thought the wording was weird. Define personnel. Don't they normally ask how many souls on board?

Take a close look at their URL: https://www.pbia.org

Here you go. Great channel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MDwzNtDMlA

Ah, it's at the top.

You didn't use the sarcasm font there, Cincinnati Kid.

Hey, any landing you can walk away from is a good one.

Yup and dey too