Plane Made Safe Emergency Landing In Omaha, Pilot Survived

It was like a scene from a movie. First a flight attendant came on the intercom of an United Airlines airliner on a flight from Des Moines, IA, to Denver, CO and asked if anyone on board had medical experience.

Nurse Linda Alweiss was the first of two nurses to answer that page, and found the captain of the airplane "mumbling and barely responsive" with an irregular heartbeat, according to a report from television station KTLA. They stabilized the pilot, started in IV, and prepped a portable defibrillator, just in case.

With the co-pilot in command of the aircraft, there came another announcement: "Does anyone in the cabin have any flight experience?" Media sources indicate that a retired pilot on board responded to that call. The co-pilot reportedly landed the airplane normally.

United said in a statement that "United flight 1637, a Boeing 737 operating between Des Moines and Denver Monday evening, landed safely in Omaha (NE) after the captain became ill. United accommodated the customers overnight, and they continued to Denver the next day."

Nurse Alweiss sat next to the co-pilot on the flight from Omaha to Denver that next day. The co-pilot said that the pilot had survived and was recovering in a hospital in Omaha.

(United 737 image from file)

FMI: www.unitedcontinentalholdings.com