An 80-year-old woman with no pilot’s license or formal training was forced to take the controls and land a Cessna 414 on Monday evening after her 81-year-old pilot husband experienced a medical emergency and lost consciousness in the air.
The woman declared an emergency around 5:30 p.m. local time while flying the twin-engine Cessna just south of Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. Local officials say air traffic controllers tried to assist her from the ground, but decided to send up a pilot in another airplane to help her down as she began to run low on fuel.