Devin Miller, 33, has a job in consumer marketing in Texas but his real love is flying planes.
He sometimes brings his family with him on his flying trips but during one such flight, his plane suffered an emergency and only his calm handling of the situation allowed him to land the plane safely and avoid tragedy.
It happened as he and his family were flying from Atlanta to Houston. With him were his wife Melanie and their two young children.
Watch the video of the emergency landing below.
[rumble video_id=v5p9zh domain_id=u7nb2]
Video credit: Rumble
They had a scheduled fuel stop in Mississippi but as Devin was lining up the plane for a landing, he discovered to his horror that the controls were not responding as intended. He immediately contacted the Memphis Center traffic controllers and declared an emergency at 4,000 feet.
Talking on the radio with his plane mechanic on the ground and the air traffic controllers, both Devin and Melanie started narrowing down their limited options. In the end, they decided on a power-off landing, a risky maneuver that involves landing with the engine completely shut off.
Devin said: “Power off landings is practiced as part of our training. I felt prepared for it but wanted to evaluate other options. I did not want to just jump to it, as typically power-off landings are unplanned and you do not have the luxury of time and without having confidence in my engine I wanted to stay close to the airport.
“In this situation, we got to choose when and how the engine would get shut down, so I took the advantage of that to really prepare and perform some troubleshooting to make sure we were really prepared.”
Despite the dire situation, Devin remained calm all throughout and pulled off the power-off landing to get him and his family safely back on the ground. Still, the relief was palpable on both Devin and Melanie’s faces once they had landed.
Devin said: “Melanie was amazing, she is the real star here. She kept the kids unaware of the situation and supported me in the troubleshooting. She was promoted from passenger to crew really quick.
“My wife being my co-pilot and working the troubleshooting allowed me to fly the plane, keeping it on course. She did amazing, second only to ATC who worked so hard to arrange everything and assist in the troubleshooting.”
“I wanted to show this video for two reasons, first to thank and show off the ground staff’s teamwork, professionalism, and support they do in the background.
“And secondly for other pilots to have an awareness of this situation to trigger a discussion with their flight instructors on what they would do.”
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