Pilot's wife with no flight training lands plane in California as husband suffers medical emergency

The brave and quick thinking wife of a pilot who suffered a medical emergency mid-flight took over the controls and managed to safely land the plan.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that real estate broker Eliot Alper was flying a twin-engine Beechcraft King Air 90 with his wife, Yvonne Kinane-Wells, from Henderson, Nevada, on their way to Monterey, California, on October 4 when he was incapacitated because of a medical emergency.

Ms Kinane-Wells took control and landed the plane with help from air traffic controllers at Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield, California, the newspaper reported.

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She successfully landed the aircraft at 1:40pm. Then, upon landing, emergency vehicles chased the plane down the 11,000-foot runway until Kinane-Wells was able to stop the aircraft.

Despite her heroism, her husband later died. A person who answered the phone at Spacefinders and Ramrod Realty in Henderson confirmed the report but refused to provide their name.

A Federal Aviation Administration report states that a member of the flight crew died during the incident and there was only one other person, a passenger, on board. Kern County Fire authorities were called to assist during the emergency landing.

Agency spokesperson Jon Drucker said dispatchers received a call that the co-pilot was going to take over landing the plane, and fire authorities followed the aircraft down the runway and chased it as it came to a stop.

This comes after, a pilot died mid-flight forcing the plane to make an emergency landing . The Turkish Airlines plane took off from Seattle in the USA at around 7pm yesterday and was forced to land at New York . It was originally bound for Istanbul before tragedy struck.

An airline spokesman said: "The pilot of our Airbus 350... flight TK204 from Seattle to Istanbul collapsed during the flight. After an unsuccessful attempt to give first aid, the flight crew of another pilot and a co-pilot decided to make an emergency landing, but he died before landing."

The spokesman said the 59-year-old pilot, who was not named, had worked for Turkish Airlines since 2007. They added he had passed a medical examination in March, which gave no indication of any health problems. The spokesman added: "We wish God's mercy upon our captain and patience to his grieving family, all his colleagues and loved ones."

It is not clear how many passengers were onboard at the time. It landed successfully at JFK airport in New York shortly before 6am local time today (about 11am BST).

The original flight from Seattle to Istanbul should have taken around 11 hours. The Turkish Airline plane was diverted after around eight hours flying time.