Pilot makes remarkable recovery after passing out; passenger landed plane

The 64-year-old smallplane pilot who became incapacitated, leaving his passenger with no flying experience to land the Cessna this month, suffered a tear in his aorta, his surgeon said.

Dr. Nishant Patel, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center, said in a news conference Thursday that Kenneth Allen’s recovery from the aortic dissection was remarkable.

“Every step of the way, it was really extraordinary that he was able to get through it,” Patel said.

“The first thing he said to me the morning after surgery was, ‘When can I go home?’ ”

Allen was flying two passengers to Florida from the Bahamas on May 10 when he lost consciousness.

Darren Harrison told NBC’s “Today” show this week the “hand of God” was with him when he landed the plane after Allen passed out.

Harrison said he was relaxing with his feet up in the back of the singleengine plane after a fishing trip in the Bahamas when the pilot told him and another passenger: “Guys, I gotta tell you I don’t feel good.”

“All I saw when I came up to the front was water out the right window and I knew it was coming quick. At that point I knew if I didn’t react, that we would die,” Harrison told NBC.

Harrison, of Lakeland, landed the plane at Palm Beach International Airport a short time later with the assistance from Air Traffic Controller Bobby Morgan.

Patel and his team stopped the blood flow to every organ except Allen’s brain, which meant his body temperature was cooled.

“When you cool someone down that low, the clock is ticking,” Patel said.