Posted on 11/20/2008 1:08:30 PM PST by bamahead
An air hostess helped land a jet carrying 146 passengers after the co-pilot had an apparent mental breakdown over the Atlantic Ocean, investigators revealed today.
The UK-bound plane made an emergency diversion to Shannon Airport, in Ireland, last January after the Air Canada flight officer began a rambling and disjointed conversation, said an official report.
Another attendant suffered wrist injuries as the crew forcibly removed the co-pilot from the cockpit controls and restrained him in a seat in the cabin.
The captain of the Boeing 767 from Toronto to Heathrow asked staff to seek out any trained pilots onboard. One of the female cabin crew came forward saying she had a commercial pilots licence and was asked to take over in the co-pilots seat.
The captain praised the attendant to investigators for helping him safely land the plane at Shannon, where the ill flight officer was removed and admitted to the acute psychiatric unit of Ennis Regional Hospital for 11 days. He was later flown home to Canada by an air ambulance for further care, according to the investigation.
The official report into the incident by the Irish Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) did not explicitly refer to the co-pilots medical condition. But it recorded the views of two doctors onboard that he was in a confused and disorientated state. The captain also reported that his colleague became uncharacteristically belligerent and unco-operative and was effectively incapacitated...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Wow, you would think Hollywood could make a movie like this.
Real life imitates ‘Airplane’ ping.
That’s comforting.
Speaking of Hollywood, do you like Gladiator movies?
Naaaa. That's cheating.
LOL.
Definitely.
I’m betting the co-pilot had the fish.
rambling and disjointed
Sign them up to host “The View”
Was the co-pilot an ROP member?
Most modern transport aircraft with FMSes can be flown by one pilot. I don’t get the “emergency” once the co-pilot had been tied-down. Perhaps the hostess did the radio work.
Ever been in a Turkish prison?
Maybe he cracked when somebody called him Shirley.
If I had a dollar for each time one of those phrases showed up on my employee evaluation...
My employer used to think I suffered a series of mental breakdowns, until he realized I was just drunk.
Owl_Eagle
When the stock market crashed,
Franklin Roosevelt got on the television
and didnt just talk about
the princes of greed, he said,
Look, heres what happened."
-Slow Joe Biden
You go, girl!
Psychos have a right to be airline pilots too!
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