Captain incapacitated and first officer lands.

[Heliian]

Captain had medical distress and passed, f.o. managed to land solo. http://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/world/u-s- ... -1.2595944

Handled well but they downplay the seriousness of the situation. The f.o. would have been under duress with the sudden emergency and experience a full workload, thus raising the probability of an error.

Quite a shock.

[ahramin]

Managed to land solo? I've never met an f/o who would have trouble managing to land solo.

[ogopogo]

Managed to land solo? I've never met an f/o who would have trouble managing to land solo.

Hey, asshat - didn't your Mom ever tell you "if you don't have something good to say, better to say nothing at all "?

[DanWEC]

I think you might have quoted the wrong post!

[andy_mtl]

I used to fly single pilot and I don't quite think the landing is the issue as much as the emotional distress such situation would put upon a person.

Andy

[ahramin]

In cases like this it's important to get the aircraft on the ground in a timely manner, but it's far more important to fly the aircraft and follow the SOP while doing so. Sounds like that's what this pilot did.

But if having a medical emergency sitting next to you is enough to make that a problem ...

[andy_mtl]

Having a medical issue and having someone passing sitting next to you is not the same thing.

Andy

[ahramin]

Agreed. But if the person sitting next to you dies and that causes you to become incapacitated to the point where you are having trouble doing your job ...

[andy_mtl]

Oh no no! That's not what I meant.

Even tho landing a plane single pilot is something we all are able to do , I m just saying that it must still be a bit uneasy to sit and fly next to the person you were talking about your week end 1 h ago and now he s passed .
That's all

Andy

[GyvAir]

I don't care what you're doing, how well you're trained or what your experience level is, as andy_mtl says, the situation as described is going to have some effect on anybody's performance.
Hopefully not to the point of making you incapable, but nobody is going to be at the top of their game in that situation.

[ahramin]

I think I'd be more comfortable having the flight attendants drag the dead pilot into the front galley. Probably easier to do the cpr as well.

[andy_mtl]

As an ex fa with 6 years of experience I personally wouldn't.
For one reason mainly.

Passenger panic.
The curtain never closes enough for people not to see what is going on.

You can recline a cockpit seat pretty fast , and perform cpr or any first aid required also you could have medilink on the phone right there to guide you thru.

A first aider cannot deem someone to be dead , however they can stop performing cpr if the situation made it unsafe for the first aider (landing)

At that point you would most likely cross the pilots arm under the shoulder harness and lock it so he or she wouldn't fall over the controls.

That's from previous airline training.

Andy

[fish4life]

Personally I'd see if there was any jumpseaters on board and get them up to the cockpit to help as a second set of eyes / checklist reader.

[ahramin]

Thanks for the info Andy, very interesting.

[Stinky]

From this article

http://www.wcvb.com/news/american-airli ... t/35660902


Wallace said. "The co-pilot is fully qualified to fly the airplane. It's rare, but they train for it."

[Rockie]

Having your partner sitting beside you under medical distress is going to be unnerving and distracting no matter who you are. Couple that with an instant field upgrade to Captain with an emergency to deal with, and flying the airplane solo when all of your training and procedures are based on two pilots. This guy did a great job keeping his head, making all the right decisions and landing safely.

Now about that brainless comment in the article about airliners flying themselves..... When I have more time.

[fleet16b]

Gentlemen
May I remind you all that this type of occurrence was once commonplace.
Try sitting beside a buddy who was at one instant flying the aircraft and an instant later in about three pieces with
bits scattered around the cockpit and on yourself.
Somehow these 18-19 yr old copilots were able to get the crews home.

I'd say the pilot did a great job in this case ...unnerving yes but not as unnerving as what some have experienced

[Old fella]

First of all, sincere condolences to that Pilot’s family/friends. Unnerving for his family who no doubt thought just another day on the job and not ever expecting to him to die doing what probably thought as a routine trip. Understand he was in his mid-50’s and just may have been looking forward to retirement in a few years hence – that’s what is sad about hearing of such events.

[Jack Klumpus]

I think I'd be more comfortable having the flight attendants drag the dead pilot into the front galley. Probably easier to do the cpr as well.

I've been in this scenario, and I don't agree with you're opinion.

Try to imagine what it would take, to bring in a few F/As, and 'drag', as you put it, a human being out of their seat, and into the galley, and leave them on the galley floor? Do you know how tough it is to carry dead weight? You think the F/As will be able to get the pilot out of their seat, and carry them through the narrow cockpit without causing a huge scene, maybe hitting some switches, buttons, etc.?

Do you think the best place to place a dead colleauge is on a floor of a galley? Having the F/As jump over their body to do their work? Or having passengers walk by them to use the washroom. Or would you also close the washroom and make it off limits?

Or better yet, break company rules and have an ABP come in to help?

I chose to leave the incapacitated pilot in their seat, moved it all the way back, and locked the seatbelts. I had 1, and only 1 F/A come in the flight deck to offer support to the incapacitated pilot, not to read me a checklist or play pilot. My priority was concentrating on getting the airplane safely down, in a timely manner, in order to maintain the safe operation of the airplane,and get the medical attention that's needed.

[ahramin]

On further thought Jack, your way sounds better. I don't know what aircraft type your incident was in but in the widebody aircraft I have seen I don't think it would be a problem getting them out of the seat without "bumping switches". But dealing with the situation the way you describe sounds like a better solution in most cases.

I've always been at a loss to understand the idea of bringing in an ABP to "help" in an incapacitation scenario. Dealing with a single pilot situation for an aircraft you've trained 2 crew on does not seem to be the proper time to teach an ABP or commercial pilot or even airline pilot anything. Type rated sure, a second set of trained eyes could definitely be useful, but anyone else I would think would be more trouble than help. If a pilot needs someone around for moral support then I guess they need it but every time I've seen two pilots not on the same set of SOPs get together and try to help each other it hasn't been better than one pilot.