Thursday, June 18, 2009

Who Landed the Plane?

Updated below

Big story about how the Pilot of a Continental Airlines transatlantic flight died during the flight. Salon.com's Patrick Smith is going to weigh in on this because at least one news agency has already gotten it wrong. From Mercury News.com,

Two co-pilots moved the captain's body to an empty seat in a crew rest area, and they took command of the Boeing 777 aircraft for the remainder of the flight.

Nope. It was the "First Officer" and another, visiting, Flight Commander who took over and landed the airplane. They are not called "co-pilots" any more, as the First Officer is a fully qualified pilot.

The New York Times got it right,

Two other pilots — a first officer with 9,800 hours of flying time and an international relief officer with 15,500 hours — assumed the controls of the plane, officials said.

Update: Friday, 9:20am
See, I told you so. When a pilot dies mid-flight

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