On October 4, Yvonne Kinane-Wells, a real estate agent in Nevada, and her husband, experienced pilot and real estate broker Eliot Alper, took off from Henderson Executive Airport in Vegas. The couple had married in February. Seated in their twin-engine Beechcraft King Air 90 series, they headed to Monterey Regional Airport on California’s central coast. Unfortunately, they never made it.

Mid-flight, Alper suffered a debilitating medical event. In turn, and despite the stressful circumstances, Kinane-Wells, who had no formal training in operating an airplane, took over the controls.

Recordings of the event reflect one controller noting “a passenger in the cockpit trying to figure out how to fly” the Beechcraft while the pilot remained incapacitated.

As part of the emergency landing process, the same controller diverted at least one other plane about 20 miles in front of the Beechcraft King Air 90 to remove any nearby obstacles in her path.

Against theoretical (and some very real) barriers, Kinane-Wells was able to follow controller instructions. She successfully navigated to and touched down in the Beechcraft without injury at Meadows Field Airport outside Bakersfield, California.

First responders tailed the plane once it hit the runway to provide Alper medical care. Alper died after EMTs transferred him to a local hospital.

The FAA says that it and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will investigate the incident.

Flying was a huge part of Alerp’s life. He volunteered for Angel Flight West, a decades-old nonprofit providing free flights to those in need. In the 1960s, his father, Arby Alper, founded the airport the couple took off from on October 4.

For those interested, here’s a handy video from Pilots Online Academy on how to land a plane, including a Beechcraft, in even the harshest conditions: