Sailvi767, the event did happen and his wife was on board. I believe she was working the flight.
From FAA History site, last sentence in this extract.
Saturday, December 29, 1979
nacted on this date, Public Law 96-171 required the National Institutes of Health to produce a study of FAA’s Age-60 rule (see March 15, 1960) in consultation with DOT. Within one year, NIH was to submit to Congress a study examining questions that included “whether an age limitation which prohibits all individuals who are sixty years of age or older from serving as pilots is medically warranted.”
The issue had come to a head because more airline pilots were reaching 60 than ever before, a trend that was expected to increase. The Pilots Rights Association, a group of some 300 older airline pilots, had waged a strong campaign against the rule. The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) was divided on the question, with many members (especially younger ones) favoring the rule. (Later, ALPA’s board endorsed the Age-60 rule in a November 1980 vote that reversed the union’s longstanding position on the issue.) Another factor that may have influenced the congressional debate was a fatal in-flight heart attack suffered by a 59-year-old Braniff captain on March 13, 1979. The outcome was a legislative mandate for a study rather than a change in the rule.