Passenger’s Effort To Land Airplane Fails First Pilot, Then His Passenger Pass Out From Carbon Monoxide

A passenger forced to take control of a small plane after the pilot passed out from carbon monoxide apparently was also overcome as the plane passed over three states. The plane crashed and both died.

The two-hour drama began in Connecticut and continued in the skies over Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Air traffic controllers coached the increasingly groggy woman and lost contact while a National Guard helicopter tried in vain to catch up to the plane in hopes of giving instruction.

“We were trying to intercept and do something,” said Connecticut National Guard Maj. Mark Rousseau. “It was a hopeless situation as far as trying to catch it.”

The blue and white plane, a singleengine Piper Cherokee flying from Farmingdale, N.Y., to Saranac Lake, N.Y., clipped the treetops and crashed near Lake Winnipesaukee in central New Hampshire.

The two victims were not immediately identified. Alton Fire Chief Russell Jones said the pilot was a middle-aged man from New York state and the passenger was an elderly woman from Morristown, N.J.

The first word of trouble came at 11:30 a.m. when Sikorsky Airport in Stratford, Conn., received an emergency alarm that the plane was about 10 miles from the field with an unconscious pilot and female passenger with no experience at the controls. It was unclear who sent the message.

Air traffic controllers in Westbury, N.Y., had tried to coach the passenger, who was initially reported to be a teenage girl, into landing the plane. Controllers said she was becoming lethargic, possibly from fumes that had affected the pilot, said Michael O’Donnell, an official at Sikorsky.

But air traffic controllers in Connecticut were unable to re-establish contact. Neither Sikorsky nor Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Conn., received any response from the plane as it headed north. And the helicopter and a private plane that gave chase also were unable to talk to the passenger.

New Hampshire Fish and Game officials said a private pilot also followed the plane up from Connecticut all the way to the crash site and saw a trail of smoke. Pilot Harold Hamre also said the plane held a steady course, as if on autopilot, said Fish and Game Capt. Jeff Gray.