feverthere wasa pilot who made his passengers feel they werein good hands, it was Joe Cabuk. The 67-year-old Air Forcecolonel had flown F-100s oyer Vietnam, commanded a fighterwing in England, and served as assistant director of operationsfor NATO in Italy. After retiring from the military in 1989, he'dreturned to his native northeastern Louisiana, where he spent20 years flying charter planes out of Monroe Regional Airport.

Silver-haired and ramrod-straight, hewas the father of two grown sons, a dea-con of his Baptist church-and a J;Ilanwho took no chances with his aircraft.

Around 1:30p.m. last Easter Sunday,Cabuk was at the controls of a six-seatBeechcraft King Air 200, calling outhis climb checklist after taking off overNaples, Florida: "Yawdamper on. Climbpower set. Propellers 1,900rpm." Keep-ing him company in the copilot's seatwas the plane's owner, a lanky con-struction entrepreneur named DougWhite. White's wife, Terri, and theirtwo teenage daughters snuggled underblankets in the passenger area, hop-ing to read and nilP during the three-hour flight home.

White, 56, took comfort in Cabuk'scareful recitation. It had been a wrench-ing week. The previous Saturday, thebusinessman's 53-year-old brother, aresident of Naples, had died of a heartattack. White and his farnily,'who livedin the tiny farming town of Archibald,Louisiana, had flown to Florida for thefuneral. Now Cabuk was flying the fourof them back west.

"Gonna get a little bumpy as weclimb through this cloud layer," Cabukwarned. He began a routine call to airtraffic controllers in Miami using theplane's FAA identification number,N559DW: "Miami Center, King AirFive-Five-Niner-Delta-Whiskey ..." Butsuddenly his voice trailed off, and hischin fell to his chest.

White tapped him on the shoulderand called his name. Raising his head,Cabuk gave a long moan. Then hiseyes rolled back in their sockets, andhe was still.

White turned around and shoutedto his wife, "Come up here, Terri. We'vegot a problem." When she saw Cabukslumped in his seat, she grabbed his.arm and tried shaking him awake."Leave him alone," White said afterseveral seconds, grasping the terribletruth. "He's dead."

In the cabin, 18-year-old Maggie, afreshman at Louisiana State Univer-sity, and her sister, Bailey, 16, a high I

school sophomore, began to tremble.The plime was a mile above the earth,

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-~ ascending at a rate of 2,000 feet per_ minute. And no one on board knew, how to get it safely to the ground ..

Doug White was a licensed pilot, butjust barely. In 1990,he'd logged enoughhours to pass his test in a Cessna 172,

I a tiny single-engine plane designedi for beginners. He'd soloed only once,

then abandoned the hobby. White wasthat kind of guy: restless and driven,prone to taking up a challenge andmoving on after he'd mastered it. Eigh-

THE ONLYCONTROL HE WAS

SURE HE COULDOPERATE WAS_ THE RADIO.

HE'D ASKEDTHE PILOT

HOW ITWORKEDTHE LAST

TIMEHEWAS

teen years later, he bought this usedKing Air as an investment, leasing itto the Monroe airport for charterflights. Owning the plane got him in-terested in flying again, and he loggeda few more hours in little Cessnas. Butthey were among the most basic air-craft, with a leisurely cruising speedof 100 knots (about 115mph).

The King Air, by comparison, wasdauntingly complex: a twin-engineturboprop, three times faster and fivetimes heavier than anything White hadflown, its instrument panel crowdedwith dozens of unfamiliar gauges andswitches. The only control he was surehe could operate was the radio; he'dasked the pilot how it worked the lasttime he was aboard.

The plane was currently flying onautopilot, a device White had neverused. It was set to 10,000 feet, but be-cause Cabuk hadn't had a chance topush all the necessary buttons, the air-craft kept climbing after reaching thataltitude. White knew enough to worrythat if the plane rose much beyond35,000 feet, it would stall in the thinair and go into a spin.

A more urgent fear: that Cabukmight slump onto the controls. "Gethim out of here!" White barked at Terri.She hollered for Maggie, but therewasn't room in the cramped cockpitfor both of them to get a handhold.Terri struggled to lift Cabuk's bOdyher-self, then gave up and tightened hisflight harness to keep him in place.

"Y'all go back there and pray hard,"White told her.

Terri kissed him on the cheek,telling him, "You can do this." Thenshe returned to the cabin and wrappedher arms around the girls. After com-forting Maggie-who, overcome withterror and nausea, threw up in an air-sickness bag-Terri did as her husbandhad requested. She'd survived a boutwith cancer four years earlier. If it'smy time to die, Lord, she thought, it's

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my time. But my mother-in-law al-ready buried one son this week. Pleasedon't give her anyone else to mourn.

White got on the radio. "Miami," hesaid, "I've got to declare an emergency.My pilot's unconscious. I need helpup here."

Nate Henkels, 30, sitting in front ofa radarscope trained on a swath ofFlorida airspace, t09k the call at theMiami Air Route Traffic Control Cen-ter. '~re you a qualified pilot?" askedHenkels, one of 97 controllers work-ing that day.

"Low-time, single-engine. I need aKing Air pilot to talk to."

Henkels was stunned; while pas-sengers had occasionally landed planeswhen the pilot was incapacitated, fewaircraft had been as large and complexas this one. After alerting his supervi-sors to White's predicament, Henkelsinstructed him to maintain an altitudeofl2,000 feet-but since Henkels hadlittle flying experience, he couldn't tellWhite how to do so. For six minutes,as Henkels juggled the dozen aircraftin his sector, the King Air kept rising."I need to stop this climb," White said."Stay with me."

''I'm here," Henkels replied, fight-ing his own fear. "Don't worry. I'm try-ing to find a solution."

Just then, a supervisor arrived withLisa Grimm, who knelt next to Henkelsand plugged her headset into his radarpanel. Grimm, 31, had flown Learjetsand worked as a flight instructor be-fore becoming a controller; thoughshe'd flown a King Air only once for138

two hours, she was able to tell Whitehow to disengage the autopilot. Theplane had reached 17,500 feet beforehe could switch it off.

"We're going to start a slow, shallowdescent," Grimm said in a soothingtone. "Pull back slowly on the throttleand ease the yoke over gently."

The "gently" part proved challeng- .ing. Even under normal coJiditions,changing a King Air's direction man-ually takes more force than White wasused to. But with the plane's other con-trols still set to climb, moving the yoke

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took all the strength he could muster.He remembered the trim wheel, whichadjusts airflow to relieve pressure onthe main controls, and reached for iton the left side of the center console.Pushing Cabuk's leg aside, he turnedthe saucer-sized disk and managed tobring the nose down.

At the Miami center, Grimm con~tinued advising White. "I want to getyou down to 11,000,"she said. He triedto keep his descent gradual, but hisspeed and angle fluctuated wildly.

"Side by side with Grimm, Henkels and

colleague Jessica Anaya, 26, workedfrantically to direct other planes outof the way.

As White's craft reached the propercruising altitude, Grimm began think-ing ahead to the landing. She knew itwould be difficult and that makingthe attempt in Miami was not an op-tion; FAA regulations require a dis-tressed plane to be guided to theclosest airport. A supervisor had al-ready contacted controllers at South-west Florida International Airport inFort Myers.

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"You're going to be talking to FortMyers approach in just a minute,"GriIIlm said. "They're going to get youdown safe." She told White to turn left,over the Gulf of Mexico, beginning acircular maneuver that would set himon the proper course. As the horizonvanished into a blur of blue, he couldstay oriented only by consulting theartificial horizon display on the in-strument panel. It was hard to main-tain a steady altitude while keeping aclose watch on the display, so Whiteset the autopilot to 11,000 feet andturned it back on, not anticipating thatthe plane would be sent careening tothe right. He hastily turned it off.

"You're doing well," said Grimm.Then she told him how to switch theradio to Fort Myers's frequency. White

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hated to cut off contact with Grimm;her calm voice had become his life-line. She promised to stand by in casehe wanted to -talk to her again.

Brian Norton was leaving work at theFort Myers control center when hisboss chased him down. "We've got anemergency," the supervisor said. Nor-ton, 48, was one of two controllerswith piloting experience on duty thatafternoon, along with newcomer DanFavio, 29, who'd been at Fort Myersfor two months. Neither one of themhad flown a King Air 200, but Favioknew someone who had: his old palKari Sorenson, 43, a corporate pilothe'd met while working at the airportin Danbury, Connecticut.

Sorenson, as it happened, had air':::readersdlgest.com 10/0;

tragedy in his background. As ateenager, he'd lost his father, also acorporate pilot, in a plane crash; hisstepfather, a demonstration pilot forprivate jets, was killed when TWAFlight 800 exploded off Long Islandin 1996. Sorenson, who became apilot in part to honor his dad, is de-voted to preventing other disasters. "Iwant to make the world a little safer,"he says.

As Norton plugged into a radarpanel; Favio sat beside him and pulledout his cell phone to caIr Sorenson.His friend told him he hadn't flown aKing Air since 1995 but still had themanual and cockpit layout. With thosein hand, and the serial number ofWhite's plane, he sat down at his home

computer to look up which model ofthe aircraft White was flying.

Norton radioed to White: "We'regetting some help from another pilotwho's familiar with the airplane. Areyou using the autopilot or hand-fly-ing the plane?"

"Me and the good Lord are hand-flying this Five-Five- Niner- Delta-Whiskey," White replied, relieved atthe promise of additional backup. Inthe cabin behind him, Terri and thegirls were still huddled, holding hands.

"Okay," said Norton. "We'll startworking you toward the airport." Heinstructed White to head 90 degreesto the left. White didn't think he couldmake the turn, given how fast he wasdescending. He asked for control set-

-

tings that would get him to the properspeed. Sorenson's suggestion-relayedby Favio to Norton, and by Norton toWhite-involved adjusting a devicecalled a heading bug. But White didn'tknow how to use it, and there was notime to learn. His airspeed was wa-vering from 230 knots down to 110,posing the danger of a stall.

Finally, Sorenson hit on a solution:"Tell him to fly the King Air like it's asingle-engine plane. An airplane is anairplane." The advice freed White torely on his instincts as -apilot; mean-while, the three men on the ground

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limited their instructions to the plane'smost basic controls. Soon White wasflying more smoothly.

When the King Air was down to2,000 feet, White spied a gray stripe inthe distance. "I think I see the runwayat twelve o'clock," he said. The planewas 15miles from the airport, lined upfor the final approach. Sorenson sentword that White should slow the planeto 160 knots, then drop the landinggear and flaps.

"When I touch down-if I touchdown-do I just kill the throttle?"asked White.

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"That's correct," Norton said. "Killthe throttle and maximum braking."

The altimeter read 1,800 feet, then1,000, then 500. An armada of ambu-lances and fire trucks was lined upalong the landing strip. Terri and thegirls prayed harder. "It looks goodfrom here," Norton told White. "The

I runway is all yours."

In Miami, a supervisor called out to! Lisa Grimm: "He's down!"

"What does that mean?" she yelled."The plane is down safely or on fire?"

In Fort Myers, Favio rushed out ofthe building to see what had hap-pened. The King Air was sitting on

, the runway, gleaming in the FloridaI sun after a perfect landing. Inside thel tower and the Miami control center,1 the cheers .and backslaps had alre~dy1 begun.I After White received instructions! from a ground controller on how to

shut off his engines, he and his fam-ily staggered from the plane. Para-medics, meanwhile, carried Joe Cabukfrom the cockpit and tried to revive

him, but they were unsuccessful. Theautopsy later determined he had diedof a heart attack.

Back home in Louisiana, White sentgift certificates for steak dinners toGrimm, Norton, Favio, and Sorenson.They, in turn, give him most of thecredit for getting the King Air out ofthe sky in one piece.

"There's a sense of fulfillment forall of us," says Sorenson. "But Doug isreally the guy who made it happen.We just gave him the tools for the job."

For a month after the incident, Whitewas awakened every night around 3 a.m.by vivid dreams: Once (;lgainhe was atthe controls of a plane he didn't knowhow to fly.He s09n returned to his flightlessons, determined to be prepared incase of another .emergency. Whateverother resources he drew from that Sun-day, he believes a higher power was in-volved in saving his family. "God spared'us for something," he says.

Adds Terri, "I just hope we haveenough sense to recognize the reasonwhen it comes."

IT'S "JAWS"OME!

After a spate of shark attacks in Australia, the Week asked its readers to·create that country's next tourism slogan. Here's what they came up with:

"What happens off the coast of Australia, stays off the coast of Australia"

"We'll throw another limb on the barbie"

"Australia: Disarmingly beautiful"

"Our visitors: The other white meat"

"Not quite heaven, but you can get there from here"

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