This story is not new, in fact, the story took place about 11 years ago on a fateful Easter Sunday. I stumbled across this video a few days ago, and decided to give it a go. I can still feel some of the feelings I felt while watching it days ago, and thus decided I should share it. As I stated, the story is not new, however, this 3D first and third person view as the pilot is new, just releases a few weeks ago, let me share just a few of the comments from the video (I suggest trying to wait until after the video to view most of them), but here are just a few:
- Best 43 minutes I ever spent on YouTube felt like I was right there with him
- Nail biting the entire time. But when his voice was shaking after he landed it was obvious he was overwhelmed with emotion and thankfulness.
- Didn't think I would watch the whole 43 minutes, but didn't skip a single second
- Most emotional 43 minutes I’ve ever watched on YouTube.
I concur with all of them, and there is many, many more. You will feel a whirlwind of emotions watching this video, so be forewarned, with this video comes a flood of emotions. I do suggest having 43 open minutes, if you are anything like me, you will not be able to turn away or pause it for even a moment.
Now, the story, the ending is no secret, so I am not giving anything away here but here is some of the story as written on youtube:
On Easter Sunday, April 12th, 2009, Doug White and his family chartered a Beech King Air B200 N559DW for a flight from Marco Island, Florida bound for Louisiana with 5 souls on board. Soon after takeoff, the pilot, 67 year old retired Air Force Colonel Joe Cabuk loses consciousness. creating an emergency situation that required extraordinary measures by the planes passengers and Air Traffic Controllers. This video is a recreation of that flight and is intended to honor and pay tribute to the pilots and air traffic controllers.
I have used actual published radar tracks and numerous published interviews and news reports to determine as close as possible the flight path, altitudes, headings, and other pertinent details of this flight. Due to a relatively erratic flight path following the emergency, some airspeeds, altitudes, and headings, may vary slightly from the actual flight. The actual ATC recording of the communications with the King Air are included in their entirety.
The end of the video will provide you with some great details as to what Doug has done to help the world since this happened. This is a great story, full of many heroes, and I hope everyone that watches enjoys it as much as I did. In these times it nice to be reminded of the good in this world.
Cheers to Doug. the traffic controllers, and the videos re-creator, you guys all deserve the highest honors. I hope Air Force Colonel Joe Cabuk is resting in the peace he so honorably deserves.
Now the video:
