| Pilot who went blind mid-flight managed to land safely |
A pilot who went blind after having a stroke while flying home from a family holiday kept apologizing to his rescuers as he made repeated attempts to land without being able to see, it emerged today.
An RAF plane had to guide the light aircraft to safety after solo pilot Jim O'Neill put in a mayday alert 40 minutes into the flight and tried to land his plane at Full Sutton Airfield near York.
O'Neill, who had the stroke at 15,000ft, is seriously ill in hospital. The incident took place last week as he was flying the two-seat Cessna back from Scotland to Essex.
He began to have problems seeing his instruments at 5,500ft and asked air traffic control for help.
He dropped to about 2,000ft as he approached Full Sutton airfield, but was not able to see the airfield and was diverted to RAF Linton-on-Ouse 20 miles away.
An RAF team from nearby Linton-on-Ouse was scrambled and a Tucano T1 jet found the aircraft and guided it to the ground over a 45 minute period.
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