Passenger-turned-pilot: 'Hand of God' was on plane
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Darren Harrison of Lakeland has gained worldwide renown since going from passenger to pilot last week and landing a small airplane after the pilot lost consciousness.
Harrison gave his first interview about the experience to Savannah Guthrie of NBCs’ TODAY Show in a segment broadcast Monday morning. Harrison, 39, spoke calmly as he recounted the experience.
“I knew it was a life-or-death situation,” he said. “Either you do what you have to do to control the situation or you're going to die. And that's what I did.”
Harrison sat in front of a white Cirrus airplane in the interview, shot over the weekend in a hangar at Lakeland Linder International Airport.
Harrison was returning from a fishing trip in the Bahamas last Tuesday as a passenger in a Cessna 208. The 10-minute TODAY segment included a photo he took during the flight showing his bare feet propped up on another seat.
As the propeller plane flew over the Atlantic Ocean, Harrison noticed that the pilot shifted position awkwardly. The man then said he wasn’t feeling well, Harrison told Guthrie.
The pilot said he had a headache and felt “fuzzy” and then became unresponsive, Harrison said. At that point, the passenger moved toward the pilot’s seat and realized the plane was heading into a nosedive.
“All I saw when I came up to the front was water out the right window, and I knew it was coming quick,” Harrison said.
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Harrison said he reached over the pilot, grabbled the control stick and slowly pulled it back while turning the yoke to correct the plane’s course. Harrison told Guthrie that he knew that if he pulled back too quickly the plane would stall and that at the speed the plane was descending a drastic move could cause the wings to rip off.
Harrison said he moved into the pilot’s seat and seized the headset the pilot had been wearing, only to find that its wires were frayed and it wasn’t working.
“So I immediately turn to the guy next to me and say, ‘I'm going to need your headset because I’ve got to talk to somebody,’” Harrison said.
He didn’t indicate who the other man was. The segment did not say how many other passengers were in the plane or if any others were also from Lakeland.
Having taken control of the plane, Harrison made contact with Captain Bobby Morgan, an air-traffic controller at Palm Beach International Airport. Harrison told Morgan that his GPS system wasn’t working.
Morgan asked if Harrison could lower the plane to 5,000 feet and maintain his course.
“And I said, ‘I can try. I can work on it, but I'm still trying to figure this thing out,’” Harrison said.
The controller asked Harrison what he could see, and he reported seeing the Florida coast and a small airport.
“When I was flying and saw the state of Florida, at that second I knew, ‘I'm going to land there,’” Harrison said. “I don't know what the outcome is going to be. I don't know how it's going to happen, but I'm going to have to land this airplane because there's no other option.”
Harrison said that Morgan instructed him on bringing the plane down toward the airport. As the plane’s altitude dropped to 200 feet, Morgan told Harrison he was approaching too fast.
“And at that point, I told the other guy, I said, ‘Hey, take the throttle and dump it on the floor. Just dump it on the floor as far as it'll go,’” Harrison said.
Harrison landed the plane safely and even felt confident enough to taxi it off the runway. He estimated that his heart rate reached 160 beats per minute during his stint of piloting the plane, but he said the full impact only struck him after he had landed.
Darren Harrison revealed that his wife is seven months pregnant
Harrison revealed that his wife, Brittney Harrison, is seven months pregnant with their first child, a girl. His voice grew thick as he described the moments after the landing.
“I threw the headset on the dash and said the biggest prayer I've ever said in my life,” he told Guthrie. “That’s when all the emotions set in.”
Harrison said it was “a thankful prayer” that included his expression of concern for the unconscious pilot.
The pilot, who has not yet been identified, was taken to a Palm Beach County hospital, where he reportedly underwent surgery to repair an aortic dissection, a tear in the inner layer of the body’s main artery.
The pilot had been released by Monday and was resting at home, TODAY reported.
Harrison is vice president at Sunshine Interiors, a Lakeland flooring company. He did not respond to an interview request from The Ledger made last week through the business.
In the TODAY interview, Harrison said friends had asked him if he worried that he would die in a crash without being able to talk to his wife a final time.
“In my mind, I knew I wasn't going to die,” he said. “The thought never crossed my mind to call and tell my wife, ‘Bye.’”
Brittney Harrison joined her husband for part of the segment. She said his call came earlier than his expected landing time, making her fear that misfortune had befallen him when the phone rang.
“I saw his name pop up on my phone, and I always calculate, you know, like, when I think he's going to land,” she said. “I immediately looked at my watch. And I was, like, ‘He should have 20 more minutes of flight time.’ So I mean, honestly, I took a deep breath and prepared myself for it to not be him on the other line.”
Brittney said that her brother-in-law died in April 2021 when her sister was six months pregnant.
Darren Harrison’s religious faith showed in his description of the experience.
“So, everybody always asks me, ‘How did the airplane do what it did?’” Harrison said. “‘How did it stay together? How did you pull it out?’ It’s — the hand of God was on that plane.”
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: In NBC spot, Lakeland man recalls landing plane after pilot passed out