Turboprop Lands Safely At RSW Sunday Afternoon

Three air traffic controllers working Miami Center on Sunday were heralded for their quick-thinking in helping a passenger land a Beech King Air 200, after the plane's pilot died shortly after takeoff.

According to the Naples Daily News, the aircraft with six persons onboard had just taken off from Marco Island Executive Airport (MKY), bound for Jackson, MS. After checking in with Miami Center and as the plane climbed through 10,000 feet, the unidentified pilot was stricken... leaving the plane flying on autopilot.

"Our controller who was working the afternoon rush tried to acknowledge him and give him climbing instructions and he never responded to us," recounted Steven Wallace, a representative for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association in Miami.

Eventually, a new voice contacted ATC. One of the passengers -- rated to fly single-engine planes, but not complex twins -- had taken the controls, but he needed assistance in how to handle the much larger plane.

Over the next 20 minutes or so, the controllers at ZMA worked to guide the King Air back safely to the ground... while also handling other aircraft through the busy airspace. "It's kind of like being the traffic policeman standing in the highway in the middle of rush hour," said Wallace. "The traffic on the highway doesn't stop. (The controller was) trying to work all of these other airplanes while this emergency was going on."

A bit of serendipity came when one of the controllers, realizing the passenger could use some help from someone with experience in King Airs, called a pilot friend in Connecticut. The controller relayed instructions from that friend to the passenger onboard, telling him how to disconnect the plane' autopilot and providing a basic course in the plane's systems.

With that assistance -- and with a big thanks to controllers around Fort Myers -- the passenger was able to safely land the King Air at Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW).

"Controllers are a unique bunch of folks," said Wallace. "Not all of them know how to fly but when it comes to crunch time, you pull all of your resources together."

Wallace also took advantage of the public relations opportunity to once again espouse NATCA's discontent with the state of labor relations with the FAA, after the agency forced a new contract on controllers three years ago.

"The three here and at Fort Myers approach were all in a very unique situation where the FAA has cut their pay 30 percent and said, 'They're not worth what we pay them,'" Wallace said, clearly implying the events of Sunday proved otherwise.

Per FAA procedures, the identities of the controllers who assisted the passenger have not been released. Authorities also did not disclose the identities of the people onboard the aircraft... including the pilot, who was later pronounced dead by personnel on the ground.

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.natca.gov