Summary:
This unit is a real life incident that happened at 12,000 feet. It conveys the message that courage and conviction take you a long way. Doug White, his wife Terri White and their daughters Maggie (18) and Bailey (16) were flying in their Beechcraft King Air 200 on Easter Sunday. Their pilot Joe Cabuk was efficient and good. The plane was a six seater and Doug was in the co-pilot’s seat while Terri and her daughters snuggled under blankets in the passenger area ready to nap during the three hour flight home.
Joe Cabuk began a routine call to air traffic controllers in Miami. He suddenly suffered a major heart attack and died in the pilot’s seat. Doug realised he was dead and shouted for Terri to come to the cockpit. The plane was on auto-pilot and was ascending at a rate of 2,000 feet per minute. Terri could not move Joe, but she tightened his flight harness to keep him in place. She went back to her frightened girls. Maggie vomited in fear. Terri had survived a bout of cancer four years earlier and was quite resigned to her fate.
Meanwhile Doug called Miami and asked for a King Air Pilot to help him as his pilot was unconscious. A pilot named Henkels and a supervisor named Lisa Grimm came to his aid. Lisa was able to tell Doug how to disengage the autopilot. The plane had already reached 17,500 feet. Then Lisa told him to start a slow, shallow descent by pulling back the throttle slowly and easing the yoke over gently. White did what he was told, but the descent was not good as the speed and angle of the flight fluctuated. Finally the aircraft was cruising. Lisa thought about landing the aircraft safely. The closest airport was Fort Myers. She asked him to turn left over the Gulf of Mexico and circle around. She asked him to switch to radio to Fort Myers’ frequency. The plane was down to 2,000 feet and White could spy a gray stripe in the distance.
The plane was 15 miles from the airport, lined up for the final approach. According to the advice given, White slowed the plane to 160 knots and dropped the landing gear and flaps. He killed the throttle and braked to the maximum. Gradually White brought the plane down and was in the runway without any hitch. A fleet of ambulances and fire trucks were ready for any mishap. White had managed to land perfectly and the plane sat gleaming, in the runway. White shut off the engine according to instruction and staggered out of the plane with his family. Joe Cabuk was declared dead due to heart attack.