The passenger who helped land a plane after the pilot went “unconscious” is talking about what happened.
In a new interview with Today, Darren Harrison talked about how, even though he had never flown before, he was able to land the single-engine Cessna 208 plane safely on May 10.
In an interview that aired on Monday, he told Savannah Guthrie, “It was a matter of life or death.” “Either you do what you have to do to take control of the situation or you’re going to die, and that’s what I did.”
The 39-year-old was coming back from a fishing trip in the Bahamas when the pilot told him and the other passenger, who was the pilot’s friend, that he “didn’t feel right.”
Harrison said that he quickly asked the pilot what needed to be done, but by that time, the pilot had stopped talking.
When he got to the front of the plane, he saw that it was nose-diving and moving “very fast” over the open ocean.
Harrison also made it clear that, contrary to what had been said before, the pilot never fell forward onto the controls.
The passenger who helped land a plane after the pilot went “unconscious” is talking about what happened.
In a new interview with Today, Darren Harrison talked about how, even though he had never flown before, he was able to land the single-engine Cessna 208 plane safely on May 10.
In an interview that aired on Monday, he told Savannah Guthrie, “It was a matter of life or death.” “Either you do what you have to do to take control of the situation or you’re going to die, and that’s what I did.”
The 39-year-old was coming back from a fishing trip in the Bahamas when the pilot told him and the other passenger, who was the pilot’s friend, that he “didn’t feel right.”
Harrison said that he quickly asked the pilot what needed to be done, but by that time, the pilot had stopped talking.
When he got to the front of the plane, he saw that it was nose-diving and moving “very fast” over the open ocean. Harrison also made it clear that, contrary to what had been said before, the pilot never fell forward onto the controls.
The passenger said, “At that moment, I knew that if I didn’t do anything, we would all die.” Harrison said that he reached over the pilot’s body and put his arms over him to grab the controls. He then slowly started to “pull back on the stick and turn.”
“How did you figure that out?” Guthrie, who was 50, asked.
“I guess it was just common sense,” the guest said. “I knew that if I went up and pulled, the plane would stall.” “I also knew that at the speed we were going, we were probably going way too fast and would tear the wings off the plane.”
Harrison also said that the first few minutes, before he could talk to people on the ground, were “the scariest part of the whole story.”
He walked up to the front of the plane barefoot and put on the pilot’s headset, only to find that the cord was frayed and unplugged.
From there, he asked the other passenger for his headset and was able to talk to air traffic control, which told him how to land safely.
Harrison said that he “slowly feathered” the brakes as they went down the runway after they landed.
“I was surprised by how comfortable I felt with it. I radioed the guy and said, ‘Hey, I’m feeling pretty confident with the brakes and everything else.
Do you want me to turn off the runway so I can clear this thing out?’ ” Harrison said.
Harrison said that when the plane finally stopped, he thanked the man on the other end of the headset and then threw it on the plane’s dashboard and “said the biggest prayer I’ve ever said in my life.”
He said that even though he prayed for everyone’s safety, his most important prayer was “for the guy in the back.”
He said, “Because I knew it was a bad situation.”
Harrison told Guthrie that the pilot should be out of the hospital on Monday, which is good news.
The passenger said that when the aviator was first taken to the hospital after the accident, he was not expected to live.
Harrison said that the first person he called when he got back to earth was his wife Britney, who is expecting their first child.
When asked how he kept his mind on what was important during the scary time, Harrison said that God was his center and strength.
He told Guthrie, “The hand of God was on that plane.” “That’s the only thing I can think of to explain it, there’s nothing else.”
On that day, Harrison radioed into Fort Pierce Tower at Treasure Coast International Airport in Fort Pierce, Florida, and told controllers that the pilot was unconscious and that he had never flown before.
According to audio that NBC News got, Harrison said, “I’m in a tough spot here.” “My pilot is no longer making sense. I don’t even know how to fly the plane.”
When the dispatcher asked where the plane was, the passenger said, “I have no idea. In front of me is the coast of Florida. And I have no idea.”
From there, the dispatcher told the passenger how to fly the plane and get around in the sky.
The FAA says that controller Christopher “Chip” Flores and operational supervisor Justin Boyle told the pilot to fly straight ahead and start a slow descent so that air traffic control could find the plane.
Joshua Somers, an operations supervisor at Palm Beach’s air traffic control facility, helped track the flight and found that it was about 20 miles from Boca Raton Airport over the Atlantic Airport.
Harrison was eventually put in touch with air traffic controllers in Palm Beach County.
The Palm Beach County controllers then got in touch with Robert Morgan, a certified flight instructor who worked at the Palm Beach air traffic facility and had experience flying a Cessna (though not that model).
Morgan agreed to show the first-time pilot how to get to Palm Beach Airport.
In an interview with the Federal Aviation Administration, Morgan talked about the incident that made headlines. He said that even though the situation was tense, it was still business as usual in the end.
Morgan said, “At the end of the day, I just feel like I was doing my job.” “But it was harder than you thought you would have to do it.”
The FAA said that the plane landed safely on the runway at 12:27 p.m.