Pilots On Ground Coach Passenger In Landing King Air

A passenger took control of a King Air C90 from its incapacitated pilot over southern California on Friday and managed to put it safely on a runway at at Meadows Field in Bakersfield. The plane ran off the end of the runway but was undamaged and no one was injured. First responders performed CPR at the scene and took the pilot to a hospital according to KGET News.

“I would say that the passenger did an outstanding job getting the aircraft down safely,” Kern County Airports Director Ron Brewster told the TV station. “He was a passenger with knowledge but no pilot’s certificate. … The pilot was transported to the hospital and we don’t have the disposition (of his condition) as of yet.”

The FAA issued the following statement: The passenger of a twin-engine Beechcraft King Air 90 landed at Meadows Field Airport in California around 1:40 p.m. local time on Friday, Oct. 4, after the pilot had a medical emergency. Two people were on board. The aircraft departed Henderson Executive Airport in Las Vegas and was headed to Monterey Regional Airport in California. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will investigate. The NTSB will be in charge of the investigation and will provide all updates. 

The aircraft, owned by a private company in Henderson, Nevada, took off from Henderson Executive Airport at 11 a.m. bound for Monterey, California. According to FlightAware, the IFR flight plan took it on a loop through southern California before turning north toward Monterey and the track shows it maintaining a steady 219 knots at 20,000 feet for almost two hours when it turned south and began an erratic descent toward Bakersfield.