Clarion Content

From the files of truth surrounds, immerses and swallows fiction every time, we once again note that you can make anything up you want because "they" couldn't say, it couldn't happen. Today on Continental Airlines Flight 61, from Brussels to Newark, New Jersey, the 60-year-old captain died in the cockpit of a suspected heart attack. The 247 passengers aboard did not learn what had happened until the flight landed safely with the two co-pilots at the controls and was met by fire trucks, emergency vehicles and scads of reporters.

The New York Times reports that, "with the jetliner approaching coastal Canada, the pilot’s body was taken from the cockpit to the crew rest area, according to Les Dorr Jr., a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. Two other pilots — a first officer with 9,800 hours of flying time and an international relief officer with 15,500 hours — assumed the controls of the plane."

Read the whole story, including other incidents of mid-air pilot mortality, here, in the New York Times.

Labels: Pop Culture