Wife with no flight experience bravely lands plane after pilot-husband suffers heart attack mid-air

To fly an aircraft, a pilot is required to go through lengthy training periods and obtain a license. But one 69-year-old woman from California had none of that expertise before she took over and landed a flight safely. Eliot Alper, 78, was piloting a twin-engine Beechcraft King Air 90 from Henderson, Nevada, to Monterey, California, on October 4, 2024, when he suffered a heart attack. Alper and his wife, Yvonne Kinane Wells, were the only two occupants of the small plane, according to a press release by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The couple had gotten married in February 2024, reported The Knot. After Wells successfully landed the plane in Bakersfield, California, Alper was rushed to the hospital. Unfortunately, he passed away in the medical facility, as confirmed by his real estate office to the Las Vegas Review-Journal on October 7. In an audio recording obtained by Inside Edition, when Alper suffered the heart attack mid-air, Wells—who is a real estate agent—received directions from air traffic control on how to pilot the aircraft to safety. The air traffic controller instructed Wells to change the course of the flight towards Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield.

An additional audio clip shared by LiveATC.net revealed how the air traffic controllers and pilots keeping a watch on the plane ensured that Wells could understand the radio message clearly during the emergency communication. "A passenger in the cockpit trying to figure out how to fly," one controller can be heard speaking over the radio to Wells, mentioning the incapacitated Alper. "I don't want to say this on the frequency with the pilot monitoring, but it looks like the wheels are partially out," another controller said, suggesting that the ground crew needed to be alerted. He suggested relaying the information on other channels, "so she does not freak out," per The Los Angeles Times.

Around 1:40 p.m., Wells managed to land at the designated location as emergency vehicles rushed after the aircraft on the 11,000-foot runway, where she finally turned off the flight's engine. "It's to my knowledge, unprecedented. I've never seen it in my entire career," said Ron Brewster, the director of airports for Kern County, reported Daily Mail. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are carrying out further investigations into the incident. Just like Wells kept her calm while landing the aircraft, another husband's quick thinking and rapid action helped save his wife's life.

When a woman named Jamie Pitcher Acord found herself stuck in a sinkhole at Popam Beach State Park in Phippsburg, Maine, her husband Patrick did not lose his cool and figured out a way to pull her to safety. "I was there Saturday with my husband, enjoying a stroll on the Beach along the high tide mark, when I fell into a sinkhole. The State Park Rangers stated they have had some reports of the sand being like quicksand. I fell in up to my hips, that's 2.5 feet. Patrick said one minute I was there and the next I was not. I could not feel the bottom and I could not get a footing. My feet are scratched up as are my knees probably from rocks or sticks in the hole. No sooner did Patrick pull me out did the hole disappear," Acord wrote about her experience on her Facebook page.