In a scenario fit for a dramatic movie, a passenger found themselves having to take control of a light plane and land the craft after the pilot suffered a fatal heart attack.
The New York Post reported the incident occurred in North Carolina last Sunday. Joseph Izatt, a professor at Duke University, was piloting the Cirrus SR-20 plane when he experienced an “unexplained health complication.”
Duke professor Joseph Izatt | Passenger lands small plane at RDU after pilot suffers medical emergency – ABC11 Raleigh-Durham
Cardiac arrest. https://t.co/7yNpFP1uHy
— Kelly DNPđFunctional/Integrative Med (@kacdnp91) April 10, 2024
The event occurred offshore over an area many call “the Triangle.”
WRAL News added the plane’s single passenger, as yet unnamed, took the controls and successfully landed the aircraft at Raleigh-Durham International Airport around 4:50 p.m.
ABC 11 referred to the landing as “a miracle.”
Evan Caulfield, a member of the Fuquay Fire Department, was near the airport and heard the distress call on his scanner. He drove to the field and captured video of emergency responders assisting after the plane landed. He told ABC 11, “I knew I was witnessing something.”
ABC 11 added that the plane was registered to Izatt, who served as chair of the biomedical engineering department at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering. Emergency responders found him slumped over the controls and removed him from the craft.
Duke Today paid tribute to Izatt in an April 8th post. They commended his “dedicated service” and called him a “pioneering researcher.”
Dean Jerome Lynch said of his colleague: “He was an exceptionally thoughtful leader who weighed every decision with a care that originated with his deep love for the BME community. The integrity and humility he brought as a school leader will be missed.”
Izatt received the Pratt School’s Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising in 2008 and the Graduate School Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring in 2017.
He also chaired the Pratt 2039 organizational visioning exercise and the Search Committee for Duke’s Vice President for Research and Innovation.
Dean Lynch concluded his comments concerning Izatt’s death, saying, “The loss of Professor Izatt leaves us and the Pratt community with a profound sense of sorrow as his dedication to his family, students, faculty and staff were the hallmarks of who he was as a person.”
“I am especially saddened to have lost a school leader who proudly led with his heart and who cared so deeply for the members of the BME and Pratt community.”
