Five Passengers Had to Restrain Their Own Pilot for 40 Minutes After He Had a Seizure Mid-Flight
On Wednesday, a regional Air Canada flight out of Newark turned into something no passenger is ever prepared for: the captain had what appeared to be a seizure mid-flight, and the people sitting in the front rows had to step in.
Five passengers on PAL Airlines flight AC7664, which was operating under Air Canada’s regional network, spent roughly 40 minutes physically restraining the incapacitated pilot using seatbelts while the first officer flew the plane to an emergency landing in Boston.
Everyone survived. The plane landed safely. But the people on that flight aren’t forgetting it anytime soon.
What happened on flight AC7664
The De Havilland Q400 turboprop was flying its usual route from Newark to Halifax, Nova Scotia, carrying 61 passengers. Partway through the flight, the aircraft suddenly lurched.
Rodney McDonald, a passenger sitting in the front row, described the moment:
“The moment the plane swerved, I knew something was wrong because it was not turbulence. It really felt like someone had jilted the controls and then it happened over and over again.”
McDonald and four other passengers made their way to the cockpit area and found the captain in serious distress.
“The pilot was out of control physically, not violently, it was clear that he was not in control of his faculties and needed to be restrained.”
A registered nurse on board helped direct the response while passengers worked to keep the captain still.
Forty minutes with seatbelts
The restraint wasn’t quick. Even after strapping the captain’s ankles, wrists, waist, and shoulders with multiple seatbelts, the passengers had to use their full strength to hold him in place.
“He was kicking and flailing and hollering at the top of his lungs and kicking at the windows, the seats, his arms were flailing and he was very strong.”
That lasted for approximately 40 minutes while the first officer, alone in the cockpit, diverted the plane and brought it down safely at Boston Logan International Airport.
McDonald’s family was seated farther back in the cabin. He was in the front row alone.
“Yeah, it was really horrifying.”
The flight crew held it together
Multiple passengers praised the flight attendants for keeping the rest of the cabin calm during the emergency. A registered nurse on board helped coordinate the response, directing passengers and monitoring the captain’s condition while the situation played out.
The first officer’s composure throughout is drawing attention too. Flying a turboprop without your captain, with passengers physically wrestling someone in the cockpit area, is not a scenario covered in a quick briefing.
The captain was taken to a hospital upon landing for medical treatment. Air Canada and PAL Airlines have not detailed his current condition.
What this says about aviation emergencies
Pilots are medically screened on a regular basis, but in-flight medical emergencies, particularly seizures, are rare and unpredictable. When a captain becomes incapacitated, the co-pilot takes over command and declares an emergency. Standard procedure.
What’s not standard is the cabin crew and passengers having to physically restrain someone in the cockpit zone for the duration of a diversion.
The story is circulating widely, partly because of how viscerally terrifying the passenger accounts are, and partly because the passengers involved sound genuinely shaken by something that should have been a routine short-haul flight.
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