Video: Moment man lands plane after pilot falls ill

77-year-old passenger landed plane in the dark at Humberside Airport

A still image from a video released by the Royal Air Force showing John Wildey flying a plane after the pilot became ill.  Image: Youtube
A still image from a video released by the Royal Air Force showing John Wildey flying a plane after the pilot became ill. Image: Youtube

The Royal Air Force has released video footage showing the moment a man with no experience was forced to land a plane single-handedly earlier this month.

The aircraft veers off the runway after landing as 77-year-old passengerJohn Wildey comes to land at Humberside Airport.

The pilot was later pronounced dead.

Flight instructor Roy Murray who helped a passenger land a plane at Humberside Airport, near Grimsby, north Lincolnshire. Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe/PA.
Flight instructor Roy Murray who helped a passenger land a plane at Humberside Airport, near Grimsby, north Lincolnshire. Photograph: Anna Gowthorpe/PA.

Mr Wildey said after the landing he thought he was going to run into a wall as he struggled to reach the brakes to stop the aircraft earlier this month.

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He landed the plane at Humberside Airport, near Grimsby, north Lincolnshire after being talked through it by a flight instructor.

The pilot, who has since died, had collapsed in the cockpit and Mr Wildey - who had never even flown an aircraft before - was left to ground the Cessna 172.

Mr Wildey required several attempts before finally touching down in the dark - with no lights on the plane.

“I’ve never flown a plane before,” he said.

“Now, I know you bring back the controls, but I didn’t bring them back hard enough, so really I was just sort of nose down rather than anything else.

“We touched and then there was a right bump - two or three bumps.

“I suppose it was a controlled crash really and then I just couldn’t get the brakes because I couldn’t reach them.”

Mr Wildey said he began to veer off the runway as he was attempting to reach the brakes and could see a wall rapidly approaching.

“I thought ‘I ain’t going to do it’, but we managed to stop in the end,” he said.

The aircraft was heading back to its base at Sandtoft airfield, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, at about 6.20pm last night when the mayday call came through.

Flight instructor Roy Murray, who guided Mr Wildey through the manoeuvre , said he made a "beautiful landing".

“I wouldn’t be frightened to fly with him.”

Mr Murray, who has more than 30 years of flying experience, said: “I feel satisfied but sad. It could have been a lot worse.”

Asked how he felt after the landing, he said: “Ecstatic. Very relieved but also sad.”

Mr Murray, who is chief instructor at the Frank Morgan School of Flying, said he had never heard of an incident like this in the UK.

He said he was called at his home near Grimsby at 6.25pm and went to the tower at the airport, where the decision was taken to use the main runway which was “lit up like a Christmas tree” as it was getting dark.

“I took him round three times,” the instructor said, “which were reasonable but not good enough to land.

“Then, on the fourth, he made a nice landing.”

Mr Murray said the atmosphere in the control tower was tense and there were handshakes but no cheers when the plane touched down.

“It was tense at times, especially the last mile or so,” he said.

“We couldn’t see any lights on him.

“It was just a silhouette in the dark. We just had to judge he was the right height and the right speed, which he was. All due respect.”

Mr Murray went on: “He seemed quite calm.”

PA