[nfbwatlk] Enjoy

[Kaye Kipp]

My God.  That's scary.  Yikes.

Kaye
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alco Canfield" <amcanfield at comcast.net>
To: <nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 7:45 PM
Subject: [nfbwatlk] Enjoy


>A British pilot who was suddenly blinded by a stroke during a
> solo flight
> was talked safely down by a military pilot, the Royal Air Force
> said Friday.
>
> Jim O'Neill asked for help after he went blind 40 minutes into a
> flight
> from Scotland to southeastern England last week. The BBC reported
> that
> O'Neill, flying a
>
> small Cessna aircraft, lost his sight 5,500 feet in the air.
>
> "It was terrifying," O'Neill said. "Suddenly, I couldn't see the
> dials in
> front of me."
>
> The air force said in a news release that O'Neill initially
> believed he'd
> been "dazzled" by bright sunlight, and made an emergency call for
> help. He
> then realized that something more serious was happening, and
> said, "I want
> to land, ASAP."
>
> RAF Wing Commander Paul Gerrard was just finishing a training
> flight nearby
> and was drafted in to help the stricken pilot.
>
> Gerrard located the plane, began flying close to it and radioed
> directions.
>
> "For me, I was just glad to help a fellow aviator in distress,"
> he said.
>
> "Landing an aircraft literally blind needs someone to be right
> there to say
> 'Left a bit, right a bit, stop, down,'" Gerrard said. "On the
> crucial final
> approach, even with radar assistance, you need to take over
> visually. That's
> when having a fellow pilot there was so important.
>
> O'Neill's son, Douglas, said his father is an experienced pilot
> who has
> flown for nearly two decades. The 65-year-old is recovering in
> hospital
> where he is beginning to regain his sight.
>
> by The doctors have confirmed that he suffered a stroke from a
> blood clot, but
> he doesn't seem to have suffered any other ill-effects apart from
> losing his
> sight," Douglas O'Neill said. "He says he went blind very
> suddenly and then,
> once he'd got over the shock, was able to distinguish a bit of
> darkness and
> light."
>
> In a recording posted to the BBC'COMSO news Web site, Gerrard gives
> O'Neill
> instructions - "a gentle right hand turn, please," is called for
> at one
> point - and he can be heard apologizing.
>
> "You could hear the apprehension in his voice over the radio and
> the
> frustration he was experiencing," said radar controller Richard
> Eggleton. "I
> kept saying 'Are you visual?' and he would reply 'No sir,
> negative, I'm
> sorry sir.' He kept on apologizing.
>
> With Gerrard talking him down, O'Neill's plane hit the runway and
> bounced up
> again, the RAF said. It did the same on the second touchdown. On
> the third,
> O'Neill was able to keep his plane on the ground.
>
> by It's one of those things you might hear about happening in some
> sort of
> all-action film but it's hard to believe what they did," Douglas
> O'Neill
> said of the RAF. "They were just tremendous."
>
> Alco
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