LONDON –

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 was 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.

"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's 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.

"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."

That's a pretty neat story.

Wow!

It's great to hear something like that with a good outcome. So easily that could have ended in tragedy.

Kudos to the pilot who became his second eyes.

Really glad to hear that Jim made it back down safely and appears to be recovering. I hope he get's all his sight back! And a big pat on the back to Gerrard for coming to the rescue and helping Jim out!!

I wonder how he kept it straight and level when he lost his sight? Isn't that just like flying into IMC without instruments? It must have take some time for the other pilot to find and get on his wing to help. Maybe he had enough sight to make out a bit of the horizon.

Skystrider wrote:I wonder how he kept it straight and level when he lost his sight? Isn't that just like flying into IMC without instruments? It must have take some time for the other pilot to find and get on his wing to help. Maybe he had enough sight to make out a bit of the horizon.

I wondered about this as well. If the air was really still, and he had already trimmed the plane for level flight, and it was pretty stable, like a Cessna, then just leaving the controls alone until help arrived would probably work okay.

On the other hand, if things were bumpy, or he was flying a twitchy plane, it would be damn hard to keep it under control. I guess he could listen for the engine to speed up or down for pitch, but if the plane started to droop a wing, I'm not sure what would be a reasonable clue.

My hat is off to the guy for keeping his cool, and using whatever he had to keep the thing flying until help arrived.

tom

wow that an amasing story! talk about flying by the seat of your pants.

here is what AVweb reporting the story:

November 7, 2008

Pilot Suffers Stroke, Lands Nearly Blind With RAF Help

By Glenn Pew, Contributing Editor, Video Editor

Jim O'Neill, 65, was flying at 15,000 feet in clear weather over the UK when he suffered a stroke that compromised his vision. The pilot of 18 years sent a mayday and eventually made contact with an RAF base at Leeming in Northallerton. During that contact, O'Neill complained of trouble seeing the instrument panel. "At first he believed he was being blinded by sunlight," Wing Cdr Andy Hynd, commanding RAF officer at RAF Linton-on-Ouse, told BBC news. But the situation was worse -- O'Neill had a blood clot pressing against his optic nerve blinding him in one eye and compromising his vision in the other. Hynd's facility took the handoff from Leeming and directed O'Neill to a landing at Linton-on-Ouse but O'Neill in seven attempts failed to see the facility. Finally, with a chief flying instructor Wing Cdr Paul Gerrard flying O'Neill's wing in his Tucano T1, "telling him to turn left and right, to lower the plane and to do his pre-landing checks," and zigzagging to keep pace with the slower aircraft, O'Neill managed to pilot the aircraft down. It was "only at the last minute" on the eighth attempt and some 40 minutes since first contact that O'Neill visually picked up the runway as he touched down near its halfway point and came to a stop at its end.

While the RAF routinely practices guiding lost aircraft, "we are not used to shepherding blind pilots," said Wing Cdr Hynd. Following his successful landing, O'Neill was checked by base medics and then transfered to Queen's Hospital in Romford, Essex. His sight appears to be gradually returning, in that he "can see the clock on the wall in his hospital room but is not yet able to read the time," according to the Times Online.

Now that's what I call partial panel IMC !! Bravo!