One instructor died of cardiac arrest midflight, but the pilot thought his colleague was joking and didn’t realize what had happened until he landed on the runway with the man on his shoulder.
According to a recent safety report on the incident, the pilot thought the instructor was pretending to sleep while flying in a loop over Blackpool Airport in Lancashire, England on June 29, 2022.
The qualified pilot had asked the instructor to accompany him aboard the fourseater Piper PA28 during windy conditions for safety reasons, according to a report by the UK Air Accidents Investigation Agency (AAIB). .
Before takeoff, the two talked normally as the pilot headed for the runway, he told the AAIB. The instructor’s last words were, “It looks fine, there’s nothing behind you.”
Shortly after takeoff, the instructor’s head snapped back. Since the two knew each other well, the pilot figured the instructor “pretended to be asleep” as he completed the route. As the plane turned around, the instructor leaned his head over the pilot’s shoulder, but once again the pilot thought he was pranking him.
After landing safely with the instructor still slumped over his shoulder and unresponsive, the pilot realized something was wrong and alerted airport emergency services, who were unable to revive the instructor.
The instructor, who has nearly 9,000 flight hours under his belt, was in a good mood before boarding the plane.
“People who spoke to him on the morning of the incident said he was normal and cheerful and there was no indication he was unwell,” the AAIB report said. “The three people who had flown with him before the incident said the instructor appeared to be fine and nothing unusual had happened.”
The British Civil Aviation Authority’s medical department analyzed the incident and the instructor’s medical history and concluded that “on the basis of the evidence presented, the person was likely to have suffered cardiac arrest when the aircraft took off”. He was known to have high blood pressure, but was within regulatory limits.
The AAIB report concludes that although the pilot on that occasion was already qualified and able to land safely, the outcome could have been very different.
“No test or evaluation can detect heart problems with 100% reliability,” and “a balance must be struck between minimizing the risk to flight safety and providing a fair and appropriate medical evaluation,” according to the AAIB. “The rarity of accidents caused by inflight cardiac events suggests that this record is currently accurate.”