I’m not sure about you, but I found learning to drive to be a very stressful experience. Me and whichever parent was brave enough to get in the car with me would both be ridiculously on edge, with just about every lesson ending in some sort of yelling match. It was not a particularly relaxing time. Now imagine the same thing happening, except the car is hurtling at ridiculous speed thousands of feet above the Earth, and also the person who is meant to be telling you what to do has passed out.
This is exactly what happened to 29-year-old student pilot Max Sylvester on the weekend, after he was forced to make an emergency landing by himself when his instructor lost consciousness. As 9 News reports, Sylvester was doing his third-ever flying lesson and first in that specific kind of aircraft on Saturday when shit hit the fan.
After establishing that he was unable to revive the pilot, Sylvester — who had never landed a plane either by himself or with assistance before — was talked through the entire landing by air traffic control. Sylvester managed to execute what appeared to be a textbook landing, touching the plane down at around 6pm.
Sylvester’s instructor was taken straight to Fiona Stanley Hospital. It is believed he suffered a seizure.
You can watch footage of the landing below:
[jwplayer IKtDopyt]
