After Pilot Dies, Jet Lands Safely in Newark

After Pilot Dies, Jet Lands Safely in Newark
By AL BAKER and SEWELL CHAN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: June 18, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/nyregion/19plane.html?th&emc=th


Continental Airlines Flight 61 was halfway through its transoceanic flight from Belgium to Newark when a sign of trouble came: A doctor was needed.

A Belgian cardiologist, Dr. Julien Struyven, was one of five doctors to answer a call for aid on Continental Flight 61. He said it appeared the pilot had a heart attack.

Five of the 247 passengers on board, including a Belgian interventional cardiac radiologist, answered the flight crew’s call for help and walked along the cabin’s two aisles toward the cockpit.

But nothing tipped the calm inside the plane, a Boeing 777. There were no follow-up announcements, no signal of an emergency over the Atlantic Ocean.

“We asked the stewardesses and they said, ‘Someone fell ill,’ ” said Marlyse Isacson, 62, who lives in Belgium and was flying to the United States to visit relatives.

The only thing even the slightest bit unusual, Ms. Isacson later recalled, was “some of the staff were very irritated and unpleasant.”

The scene unfolded midway through the scheduled 8-hour, 15-minute flight, which took off at 9:54 a.m. in Brussels (3:54 a.m. Eastern time). What the passengers were unable to piece together — until after they touched down safely at Newark Liberty International Airport at 11:59 a.m. — was that the plane’s pilot had suddenly slumped over dead in his captain’s chair.

As the five doctors approached, it was quickly determined that the cockpit area would accommodate only one. Dr. Julien Struyven stepped forward. He checked the pilot’s vital signs and tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate him with an onboard defibrillator, then declared the pilot dead. He said later that the likely cause was a heart attack.

The captain had “died in flight, apparently of natural causes,” according to Julie King, a spokeswoman for Continental. The captain, who was 60, had 32 years of service with Continental and was based in Newark, Ms. King said.

Later, in an interview with television station KHOU in Houston, the pilot’s widow, Linda Lenell, identified him as Craig Lenell and said he “never, ever had any kind of heart problems.”

“As I understand it, he was in the cockpit, and the co-pilot thought he was sleeping, that he’d nodded off,” Ms. Lenell said, choking back tears in the interview. “He couldn’t wake him.”

Though no one has officially said he died of a heart attack, Ms. Lenell said, “that’s all that we can think of.”

Because he was a captain, Mr. Lenell, a father of six, was required to have a physical examination every six months; he was due for his next one in September.

The family lived in Texas, Ms. Lenell said. She said that her husband had called her from Brussels just the day before and told her that he was bringing her home some chocolate.

On Thursday morning, as the jetliner approached 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, officials said.

“The crew on this flight included an additional relief pilot, who took the place of the deceased pilot,” Ms. King said. “The flight continued safely with two pilots at the controls.”

None of what occurred pierced the passengers’ consciousness, and many passengers later expressed gratitude that they could only wonder why the crew had sought a doctor’s help.

“It’s scary, but in all honesty, it’s kind of a good thing that they didn’t tell us,” said Chris Balchuns, 18, a passenger on the flight. “Everybody kept calm.”

Martha Love, who was seated in the front row, said there had been no panic.

“It was very calm,” she said. “Everyone was very relaxed.”

Another passenger, Kathleen Ledger, of Bethlehem, Pa., who was returning from a visit to her husband in Brussels, said she turned on her cellphone after the plane landed, at Gate C123, and spoke to her husband, who relayed the news.

Ms. Isacson said the flight attendants sternly warned passengers to remain seated as the plane taxied on the tarmac. After she learned of the death she said, “Now I understand why.”

Midair pilot deaths are a rare but not unheard-of phenomenon.

Air traffic controllers helped a passenger land a twin-engine plane in Florida in April 2009, after the pilot died after takeoff. In February 2008, a British Airways flight operated by GB Airways, which had left Manchester, England, heading for Paphos, Cyprus, was diverted to Istanbul after one of the first officers died. None of the 156 passengers were hurt. Thirteen months earlier, a pilot of a Continental 757 bound from Houston to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, died after takeoff with 210 passengers on board. The flight landed safely in Texas.

In 2007, Congress voted unanimously to increase the mandatory retirement age for commercial pilots from 60 to 65, the international standard, changing an F.A.A. regulation that had been in place since 1960. The argument for the age limit was that older pilots more often become incapacitated for medical reasons.

Under the new law, known as the Fair Treatment for Experienced Pilots Act, pilots 60 and older are required to have a medical certificate renewed every six months, though Ms. King declined to comment on whether the pilot who died was in compliance with that rule. The legislation also included a stipulation for international flights: A pilot who has turned 60 may be the pilot in command only if there is another pilot in the flight crew who is younger than 60.

Patrick Smith, 43, a commercial airline pilot who flies as a first officer on 767s, said transoceanic flights almost always carry auxiliary crew members.

Each of the three crew members on Flight 61 would have been “fully qualified to operate the aircraft in any regime of flight, including takeoffs and landings in both good and bad weather,” Mr. Smith said.

Terry Williams, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, said the board was not investigating the matter. “This was not an accident,” he said.

Reporting was contributed by Liz Robbins, Nate Schweber, A. G. Sulzberger and Dominick Tao.