A Lufthansa Boeing 747 was landed by a passenger this week, after its co-pilot fell ill.
The aircraft involved in the incident, registration D-ABVH, is shown below.
According to dnaindia.com, the 264 passengers on the flight from Newark to Frankfurt appeared to have a lucky escape on Monday morning, as there was another trained pilot amongst them who could land the plane.
Once this was discovered, flight tracker teams were swiftly made aware of the changes and the plane was diverted for a safe landing in Dublin.
Here on planefinder.net we saw flight LH403 (callsign DLH403) land at Dublin shortly after 05:30 local time – you can replay the flight here: http://planefinder.net/flight/DLH403/time/2012-11-19T05:20:00%20UTC
The pilot, who was suffering from a severe migraine, was taken to hospital and the flight made its way to Frankfurt after a replacement was found.
A Lufthansa spokesperson has officially thanked the off-duty pilot for their efforts in helping to land the plane.
However, in an interview with dailymail.co.uk, they were keen to make it clear that the passengers would have been fine even without this lucky occurrence.
“In such circumstances, it’s absolutely normal procedure for the pilot, the flight captain, to continue to operate the aircraft. Also, where necessary, the cabin crew are fully trained and can be called upon to read checklists back to the pilot,” they explained.
“The procedures are in place for such an eventuality – but the efforts of the off-duty pilot were certainly appreciated.”
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