A frail 80-year-old
Wisconsin woman spent a harrowing 90 minutes learning how to handle a Cessna
plane and then land it after her husband, who had been piloting the plane,
collapsed while at the controls.
Helen Collins successfully landed the plane as it was running out of gas and an
engine sputtering.
She is
expected to be released from the hospital today with minor injuries after her
bumpy landing Monday night at Sturgeon Bay. Despite
the miracle landing, Helen Collins' husband John, 81, did not survive.
Her
son, Richard Collins, recounted the ordeal today,
punctuated with tears of grief for his father and chuckles of relief for his
mom.
"I
can't even tell her how to run a computer, let alone land a plane," Richard
Collins, 55, told ABCNews.com. "It was a very trying time. I thought I was
going to lose them both."
John
and Helen Collins were flying from Florida to Wisconsin on Monday. John had not
been feeling well on Thursday and the couple's son James Collins, also a
pilot, wanted to meet them in Rome, Ga., where they were stopping, to fly the
rest of the way.
"He
wasn't right. You could tell something was wrong. He said he had a sore
neck," Richard Collins told ABCNews.com today. But John Collins said
he would fly himself.
"He
had called me on the phone and asked me where I was," Richard Collins
said. "I said I was at the airport waiting for him and he said he'd be
there in 20 minutes. The next thing I knew, I saw the plane fly over the
airport."
About
six miles from Sturgeon Bay, Wis., something had gone wrong.
Helen
Collins had called 911 to say that "her husband, the pilot of the
aircraft, was having some sort of medical emergency and was unresponsive in the
aircraft," according to a Door County Sheriff's Office report.
She was
going to have to land the plane.
Collins
said his mother had flown in the past, even flying solo, but she had never
flown the two-engine Cessna and she had not piloted in about 30 years.
Richard Collins worked with the Cherryland Airport to send out the
family's other plane with a pilot to shadow his mother and help her land.
Another pilot was communicating with her from the ground.
"Robert [Vuksanovic, the pilot in the second plane] got in the air
and was flying just off Helen's wing and was consulting her via radio,"
according to the report. "The two aircrafts did several fly-by type
maneuvers as practice runs."
"The sheriff said she was amazingly calm and alert and
level-headed," Richard Collins said of his mother who he described as
"about as frail as frail can be" after having undergone two
open-heart surgeries in the past several years.
Collins recalled his mother saying to everyone instructing her,
"Don't you guys have faith in me? I can do this." But moments before
landing, she said, "I don't think I can do this."
After circling for an hour-and-a-half, she was able to land the plane.
Keith Kasbohm, director of Cherryland Airport near Sturgeon Bay, told the
Associated Press, "She was on her last attempt to get lined up with the
runway. She reported one engine was sputtering on that last attempt to land. We
were all watching and knew she had to do it."
"She bounced pretty hard," Richard Collins said. "When she
bounced, the plane tilted forward and the landing gear broke."
Both Helen and John Collins were taken to the hospital where John Collins
was pronounced dead. His son believes he had a heart attack. His mother has a
crushed vertebra, but is expected to go home today.
When Richard Collins spoke to his mother, she described what had happened
in the plane.
"She said that Dad became unconscious and took off his seatbelt to
breathe better," Richard Collins said. His father lay down in the plane
and his mother saw him "turning gray."
"She felt his hand and she knew," Richard Collins said as his
voice cracked. "Everybody is so proud of her."
John Collins was the president and CEO of the family business, C&S
Manufacturing, in Sturgeon Bay and had 50 employees. He began flying planes in
the 1980s and frequently volunteered his services for Angel Flight, a group
that helps transport patients in need to the hospitals they need to get to.
"My dad is the kind of guy that will help anybody. He's very generous
and never turned anybody away," Richard Collins said. "He was like a
father to anybody he knew. You couldn't find a better person. He's a better
person than me. He's been a pillar in the community, my mom too."
Last week, the family spent time in Florida, relaxing by the ocean and
eating out together.
Richard
Collins remembered a conversation he heard his parents having in Florida last
week while he was in his room going to bed.
"He
says, 'Helen, I'm really lucky to have you.' And she said, 'No, I'm lucky to
have you.' He said, 'No, I'm luckier to have you,'" Collins said through
laughter and tears. "They were very tight."
