Very sad but people do die <60.

Here some odds vs age range..

http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/death/overview.htm

infant (<1 year including neonates) 0.706% (1-in-141)
infants (older than 28 days) 0.188% (1-in-531)
1-4 years 0.034% (1 in 2,941)
5-9 years 0.017% (1 in 5,882)
10-14 years 0.021% (1 in 4,761)
15-19 years 0.069% (1 in 1,449)
20-24 years 0.093% (1 in 1,075)
25-34 years 0.108% (1 in 925)
35-44 years 0.199% (1 in 502)
45-54 years 0.427% (1 in 234)
55-64 years 1.021% (1 in 97)
65-74 years 2.484% (1 in 40)
75-84 years 5.751% (1 in 17) and
85+ years %15.475% (1 in 6) [CDC NVSR 2001].

So 5 of 6 in the 85+ age range never die. Interesting... I'd always thought it was 100% there.

Thoughts and prayers with the family ....

I guess GOD's his CoPilot now !

I've had three friends die in their mid-40's.

One contracted a staph infection in a medical facility, had a high fever, went into a coma and lingered two or three weeks.

One had a heart attack during surgery, induced by anaesthesia, died the following day of a stroke.

One had a heart attack while swimming at the company's health center. He was dead within a minute.

Scary.

Carpe diem
 

With the deepest of respect to readers, and family of the man involved...

We're all going to go, and soon. If I die at 85, that's only 40 odd years to go.
I'd call that 'soon'. And not enough.

Don't give in to the inescapable finality of it all. Bollocks to that. When, where and how matter little. Every single one of us need to get out there and 'do', now.

Like that HK guy said so very well...you know, about the bell and all.

Deepest respect to his family.

private pilot involvement
 

The Albuquerque Journal today carried a story on a participant in this incident. It says that the co-pilot asked whether there were any pilots flying as passengers.

A private pilot (licensed 1.5 years, 150 hours) responding wound up in the right seat. In his own description the co-pilot "knew full well he could land the aircraft without my or anyone else's help". The private pilot stated that he performed some standard radio work, co-reviewed checklists, and lowered flaps and landing gear as instructed.

The Albuquerque angle is that the private pilot lives here.

http://staugustine.com/stories/01250..._4358533.shtml


"When pilot dies, panic quickly follows "

St. Augustine photographer Tom Addison didn't worry when flight attendants on Continental Flight 1838 asked if there were any doctors on board.
The frequent traveler had heard such requests on previous flights. What came next, however, was a first.
A voice came over the loudspeaker and said, "Is anyone a pilot? We need someone with flying experience."
That's when panic set in for the 210 passengers aboard the Boeing 757, which was en route from Houston to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on Saturday. Some people gasped. Others laughed, saying the announcement must have been a joke. A few passengers stood up, demanding to know what was happening.
"Nobody really knew what was going on - until the cockpit door opened," Addison recalled, back from Mexico at Addison-Fitzgerald Studios on Wednesday.
The passengers fell silent as two men, who work in the medical field, dragged the plane's unconscious pilot from the cockpit into the aisle. They began administering CPR as flight attendants ran back and forth to the rear of the plane, bringing life support equipment to the men administering CPR.
"It was something right out of the Twilight Zone," Addison said, admitting he, like the rest of the passengers, was beginning to panic.
One passenger asked what was on everyone's mind: "Can one pilot land a plane this big?"
The passenger next to Addison, an Albuquerque, NM, man who owns a plane, stood up and offered to help the co-pilot make an emergency landing.
Addison said flight attendants managed to stay calm and keep the passengers in their seats as the plane changed course.
As the plane diverted toward McAllen, a small city near the southern tip of Texas, efforts to revive the pilot continued to fail. The middle-aged man, whose name has not been released, had greeted the passengers as they boarded the plane just over an hour earlier.
About 30 minutes later, the plane made an emergency landing on the McAllen-Miller International Airport's short runway.
It came to what Addison calls a "hard stop." Then emergency crews boarded the plane and took the pilot away in an ambulance. Minutes before the landing, however, Addison said the pilot "flat lined." He never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead soon after he was taken away.
A McAllen medical examiner has not released the pilot's official cause of death, but Addison said the plane's passengers were told it was a heart attack.
Before they got off the plane, the passengers applauded the pilots for the safe landing and clapped for the people who administered CPR.
Continental employees served them food and drinks over the next few hours as they awaited a new flight crew to take them the rest of the way to Puerto Vallarta.
Addison was headed to the Mexican city to conduct a photo shoot for Ujena swimwear.
The shoot went well, and the trip back to St. Augustine was "strictly normal," the photographer said.
The experience won't discourage him from continuing to fly.
"Flying really is safe. The odds of that happening are one million to one," he said.

:} :rolleyes:

to the point of view of PAX, its a valid question, i mean if you didn't *need* two people, why are there two people in the pointy end ..

and i am sure it would have been similer when flight crew were 3 or 4 persons..

Members-of-public don't know the details of the job, nor should they have to,
but in that situation i would have to be going though their collective minds, that planes do crash occasionaly, despite or best efforts

Taking a BAIT
 

Not so sure about those odds.
.
It was probably smart of the F/O to get some other "hands" up front. If they'd been an overnighting holiday charter crew who'd had a good curry together in Alicante or Puerto Grosso or Mukkinsville, it would've been almost "de rigor". And that would've been particularly so if the captain had been upchucking before losing consciousness.
.
But having said that, it wouldn't take a real brains trust terreotype to deviously place some incapacitating food additive in a flight crew's alimentary canals that would take effect some hours later (after takeoff and down-route). I hope the average SOP has a paragraph on that subject.
.
There's delayed acting, slow-acting and deferred action poisons that can put you out of the picture so fast that no-one would know that both pilots were incapacitated on the other side of that locked cockpit door until the top of drop was well overdue.
.
Food for thought. Food for Death.

Who should assist?
 

A couple of airlines teach getting a cabin attendant to read the checklist etc. in this situation - even to the extent of practising this in emergency courses.

Unless there is known to be a DH cockpit crew member in the cabin, who can be asked discretely, I think I would tend to do the same. It's a small point though - either way it was a nasty situation and successfully handled.

Good CRM on the pilots part. Since he was a check airman giving IOE to the new captain he was very comfortable in the left seat and having someone in the right seat made the situation more normal since he also checked out FO's. If nothing else he could read the check lists and help with the radio work. I can understand the passengers being alarmed but how else could you find a pilot passenger? Bet he feels great knowing he helped land an airliner with 150 hours.

Another news piece giving a bit clarification on how the private pilot was chosen to assist:

http://www.airportbusiness.com/artic...tion=3&id=9926