Teenager to rescue as pilot passes out
A teenager has described how he took the controls of a light aircraft for more than half an hour after the pilot passed out during a joy flight over rural Australia.
Troy Jenkins, 19, said the single-engine Cessna 150 was only 10 minutes into a flight from the New South Wales state farming town of Forbes on Saturday afternoon when the pilot Derek Neville, 61, lost consciousness.
Jenkins said he had taken the controls before while flying with Neville, a family friend. Jenkins flew circles around Forbes airport at 2,000ft for around 45 minutes before the pilot came to.
“Keeping it up wasn’t a problem, it was the landing part I wasn’t sure of,” Jenkins said. “I was pretty scared. I thought I had to save myself and him. It was quite an experience.”