Cabby,
I find it hard to believe that the passengers were patiently, quietly sitting in the passenger compartment. I could easily immagine screaming, crying, and outright chaos.
Black Hole liftoft, short flight preparation, billionaire owner onboard, chaos in the passenger compartment. I am not sure that any of us pilots could reliably pull that off, or should even try. However, if it truly was a life and death situation, I am not sure as a pilot how you say no.....
Every EMS Pilot in the World has experienced this on more than an in-frequent basis.
Dark holes in the woods or along a highway, in a wire environment, responding to a scene call with no notice in the pitch dark....middle of the night...lots of blood and gore...Med Crew struggling to get the patient taken care of.....that is the stock and trade for our folks doing the EMS thing.