Pilot Thought Dead Co-Pilot Was Joking

A pilot in England whose co-pilot died shortly after take-off thought the man was joking and didn't realize the truth until after landing, investigators say. According to a report from the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch, the pilot had planned to fly a Piper PA-28 light aircraft from Blackpool to another airfield in June last year but decided it was too windy, CNN reports. To stay within his flying club's recency requirement, the pilot decided to fly a circuit around the airport instead and asked a flying instructor, a man he knew well, to accompany him for safety reasons. The pilot told investigators that he chatted normally with the instructor as they taxied the plane to the runway. He said the instructor's last words were, "Looks good, there is nothing behind you."

The pilot said that when the instructor's head rolled back after take-off, he though the man was pretending to have a nap. When the plane turned and the man slumped with his head on the pilot's shoulder, he "still thought the instructor was just joking with him and continued to fly the approach," the report states. The pilot landed normally and made a call for help after the man remained unresponsive and he realized something was wrong, the BBC reports. Investigators said the instructor died from a sudden heart attack around the time the plane took off. The instructor was 57 years old with a history of high blood pressure, the report states.

He had been taking blood pressure medication since 2002 and passed an aviation medical four months before his death. "People who had spoken to him on the morning of the incident said he was his normal cheerful self and there were no indications that he was feeling unwell," the report states. The report noted that while the man was flying with a qualified pilot who could land the aircraft safely, "had this occurred on another flight the outcome could have been different." The report did not call for any major changes to policies, saying no assessment can "give a 100% reliable detection of cardiac issues" and since accidents caused by cardiac events are very rare, it suggests the balance between minimizing risk and delivering fair assessments "is currently about right." (More pilot stories.)