Pilot thought instructor’s sudden death mid-flight was prank, says report

A UK pilot whose instructor died suddenly mid-flight thought the older pilot was pulling a prank, according to a report published this month by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch. 

The incident occurred in June 2022 during a training flight from an airfield in Blackpool. The pilot recalls speaking normally with the 57-year-old instructor, with whom he enjoyed a friendly rapport, as he taxied on the runway.

Shortly after takeoff, the instructor’s head rolled back. The pilot thought the instructor was pretending to take a nap and proceeded to fly the circuit. During a turn, the instructor slumped forward with his head resting on the pilot’s shoulder. The pilot still thought the instructor was joking around.

After touchdown, the instructor still had not lifted his head from the pilot’s shoulder and was unresponsive. The pilot alerted other aircraft personnel and an ambulance was brought in, but medics were unable to revive the instructor.

A post-mortem report found that the instructor, who had passed his physical test two months ago and was fit to fly, had suffered sudden acute cardiac failure.

“People who had spoken to him on the morning of the incident said he was his normal cheerful self and there were no indications that he was feeling unwell. The three people who had flown with him for the trial lesson just prior to the incident flight said he seemed well and nothing abnormal had occurred,” says the report.

The instructor did suffer from hypertension, though his blood pressure was within regulatory limits.

Pilots losing consciousness or dying mid-flight has become a relatively familiar occurrence in the last two years.

In November, a newly-hired Envoy Air pilot collapsed just minutes after takeoff and was pronounced dead at the hospital shortly after an emergency landing, reported Frontline News. 

Other reported cases include a passenger with no flying experience miraculously landing a plane after its pilot suddenly suffered a cardiac event and passed out mid-flight.    

In another incident last year, American Airlines Captain Robert Snow suffered a cardiac arrest six minutes after landing, for which he blamed the COVID-19 vaccines.  

“This is what the vaccine has done for me,” Snow said in a video. “I will probably never fly again, based upon the criteria that the FAA establishes for pilots. I was hoping to teach my daughter to fly. She wants to be a pilot. That will probably never happen. All courtesy of the vaccine. This is unacceptable and I am one of the victims. You can see that this is the actual result of the vaccine for some of us. Mandatory, no questions asked. Get the shot or you’re fired. This is not the American way.”    

In yet another harrowing episode, Captain Cody Flint nearly blacked out during his flight two days after getting injected with the COVID-19 shots. While he safely landed the plane, Flint has no recollection of doing so.     

Public concern about air safety appears to be growing following these incidents, causing those who fly private to seek out pilots who have not been injected with the COVID-19 shots, according to pilots familiar with the industry. 

Captain Alan Dana, who was terminated by JetStar after 14 years of service for refusing to comply with its vaccine mandate, said on Maria Zeee Uncensored last month that unvaccinated pilots are in high demand among the wealthy. Dana cited US Freedom Flyers President and American Airlines First Officer Josh Yoder, who said he is inundated with calls requesting unvaccinated pilots, ostensibly for safety reasons. 

“He’s getting calls now from wealthy businessmen and companies to fly their executives around on business jets with unvaccinated crew,” said Dana. “Now, they get the luxury of being able to choose, because there are still a large amount of crew available in the United States who are not vaccinated because the companies they work for didn’t mandate it.” 

“These wealthy businessmen are requiring unvaccinated crew on their business trips,” Dana added. “Passengers on an airline who bought a ticket don’t have that luxury.” 

A statement published last year by the Global Aviation Advocacy (GAA) Coalition, representing “thousands of pilots at over 30 global airlines, along with over 17,000 physicians and medical scientists, worldwide” also illustrates a worrisome trend among vaccinated pilots.  

“The undersigned pilot advocacy groups, scientists and doctors are hearing daily from vaccine-injured airline pilots,” the statement reads. “These harms include cardiovascular issues, blood clots, neurological and auditory issues, to name just a few.  

“Many of our pilots have lost medical certification to fly and may not recover the same. Others are continuing to pilot aircraft while carrying symptoms that should be declared and investigated, creating a human factors hazard of unprecedented breadth.” 

Medical and aviation experts warned about the vaccine’s impact on flight safety in a December 2021 letter to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Justice, and major airlines such as Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Airlines and Alaska Airlines.    

The letter, signed by some of the world’s foremost medical experts, urged the FAA to medically flag all vaccinated pilots and have them examined to avoid catastrophic events resulting from the vaccine. Many pages of evidence were appended to the letter attesting to the dangerous effect of the vaccine, including multiple reports from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), and affidavits from medical experts.  

The letter also contended that allowing vaccinated pilots to fly runs counter to aviation guidance, which says that pilots should not be allowed to fly if using medication that the “FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approved less than 12 months ago. The FAA generally requires at least one-year of post-marketing experience with a new drug before consideration for aeromedical certification purposes. This observation period allows time for uncommon, but aeromedically significant, adverse effects to manifest themselves....”   

But not only are pilots being allowed to fly after having the COVID-19 injection, they are being forced to do so. Furthermore, the injections have not been approved by the FDA at all, instead remaining under an emergency use authorization (EUA).   

“Currently, not only have all pilots flying commercial airplanes not had at least one year of post-marketing time elapse post-FDA approval of the agent injected into their bodies, these pilots are flying with an entirely UNAPPROVED product in their systems, that is now unfortunately proving to cause all manner of clotting, embolic and thrombosis-related side effects (which side effects are known to occur with greater frequency and severity when at altitude).   

“Additionally, across all populations, the inoculations are resulting in significant increases in myocarditis and subsequent heart failure, arrhythmias, cardiac arrests, and deaths,” the letter continued. “This is especially true in the younger male cohort, to which many pilots belong.”   

The letter warned that “should the FAA fail to ground and medically de-certify all pilots” who received the COVID-19 injections, it “will be putting many innocent airline passengers' lives in harm's way in the event a pilot loses control of his aircraft after suffering a major bloodclotting event (pulmonary embolism, stroke, etc.) or a myocarditis-related event, either of which can result in incapacitation, cardiac arrest, and death.”   

The letter was signed by Dr. Peter McCullough, M.D., Dr. Ryan Cole, M.D., LTC Colonel Theresa Long, M.D., MPH, Pilot Cody Flint, and human rights attorneys.