Aircraft Captain dies over the Atlantic
A Continental Airlines Boeing 777 landed safely at Liberty International Airport, Newark, NJ on June 18 after the aircraft’s 60-year-old captain died of a suspected heart attack during a flight from Brussels.
The 247 passengers on the flight were unaware of any problems despite a request from a cabin attendant asking if there was doctor on board.
Dr. Julien Struyven, a Brussels cardiologist, examined the captain and tried unsuccessfully to revive him with a defibrillator but confirmed his death, saying he appeared to have suffered a heart attack.
Because the flight was scheduled to take over eight hours, a third pilot was on board to provide rest periods for the flight crew. The two first officers were fully trained and able to complete the flight routinely.
Pilots worldwide must pass an extensive physical every six months to revalidate their licences. The extensive examination includes an electrocardiogram, blood pressure check and a vision test.
Periodic co-pilot training includes simulator exercises in which they must take off and land without a captain.
In the early sixties a Trans-Australia Airlines (TAA) Douglas DC-4 night freighter made an emergency landing on Bulwer Island in the Brisbane River after the captain left his seat during a heart attack and collapsed over the engine controls, closing the throttles and possibly also retarding all or some of the fuel mixture levers to the idle cutoff position.
The crew had been preparing to land and the First Officer only had time to shut off the fuel and electrical systems before guiding the aircraft to a night crash-landing on the (then) mangrove-covered island. The aircraft fuselage was almost undamaged and animals aboard survived the crash; however the First Officer was killed when a tree branch entered through a cockpit window during the landing. The Captain’s body showed no signs of injury, which quickly led investigators to a medical confirmation the finding that a heart attack was responsible.
