Who is passenger who landed plane in Palm Beach?
The brave passenger who safely landed a small plane after the pilot became incapacitated has been identified. He’s Darren Harrison, 39, of Lakeland, a family member told the New York Post.
According to a Federal Aviation Administration release entitled “Miracle in the Air,” the hero passenger was traveling back home from the Bahamas with another passenger at around noon Tuesday when the pilot told them he “wasn’t feeling well” and fell against the controls.
The Cessna 208 went “into a nosedive and sharp turn.” Neither Harrison nor the other passenger had flying experience, and “what unfolded thereafter was truly remarkable,” said the FAA, which did not identify the man by name.
Harrison pulled the aircraft out of the nosedive and called the tower at Treasure Coast International Airport in Fort Pierce.
“I’ve got a serious situation here. … The pilot is incoherent,” says the married father-to-be in audio released from the radio call. “And I have no idea how to fly the airplane.”
Gregory Battani — the lead air-traffic controller at Palm Beach International Airport — called Robert Morgan, a flight instructor who has piloted Cessnas.
Morgan printed out a picture of the cockpit and “offered clear, short directions.”
Morgan walked him through “turns, selecting flap settings needed to create enough lift at slower speeds and trim (to alleviate pressure from the control surfaces during flap extension) and explaining how to land,” the statement says.
The passenger wanted to fly to Boca Raton, said the FAA, but Morgan instead guided him to the West Palm Beach airport because it had a longer runway and was less congested.
“We’ve never had anything like that . ... I felt like I was in a movie,” said Morgan in the statement. “Everybody wanted to participate and came out of the offices to assist in any kind of way.”
Morgan guided the passenger through a long, stable final approach.
Once the small plane was over the runway, Morgan explained how to keep the nose barely off the ground until the main gear touchdown. The aircraft landed at 12:27 p.m. First responders were there to assist with the original pilot, whose condition remains unknown.
Harrison has declined interview requests so far.
But his cousin, Matthew Harrison, told the New
York Post: “That was insane. I’m impressed too, he was so calm. I’ve never known him to be that calm before.”
The heroic passenger is an interior designer and VP for Sunshine Interiors, a family flooring and window treatment business in Lakeland. The person who answered the phone on Friday at the office said Harrison wasn’t available: “He’s trying to stay low-key and get his job done.”