A 49-year-old Russian pilot has suffered a heart-attack in the cockpit of an Aeroflot Airbus A320 forcing the crew to make an emergency landing. However, the First officer was pronounced dead upon landing.

“Unfortunately it was not possible to resuscitate the pilot,” an Aeroflot spokesman told RBC news.

Flight SU1546 was flying from Moscow at 8.20am (local time) 24/11/2019 to the resort town of Anapa on the Black Sea with the scheduled time of 10.40am, but instead landed at Rostov at 9.57am.

“A female flight attendant ran through the plane asking if there was a doctor because one of the crew members was feeling unwell. A female passenger told the Mirror

Local media report that the preliminary cause of death was a heart attack or thrombosis, but the Russian Investigative Committee’s southern investigative department has now launched a probe into the incident.

It has been reported that the passengers were able to continue to Anapa with a replacement co-pilot.

Back in August, both engines of an Ural Airlines’ Airbus A321 stopped working after bird-strikes forcing Captain Damir Yusupov to ask for an emergency landing at the airport, but then decided to bring the plane down at the earliest opportunity – in a cornfield near Ramenskoye settlement in Moscow region.

In 2015, the captain of an American Airlines jet became ill and died during a late-night flight from Phoenix. The co-pilot of the Boston-bound plane made an emergency landing in Syracuse, New York.

Pilot deaths during flights are rare. In most cases, the other pilot in the cockpit has been able to land the plane without further incident. It’s situations like this that really show the level of professionalism in the aviation industry as a whole. At the end of the day you should never be afraid of flying.

If you are interested in knowing more about pilots procedures in case of a Pilot incapacitation, check out this video from Mentour Pilot: 

Pilot suffers fatal heart attack leading to an emergency landing was provided for Mentour Aviation by Travel Radar – Home of Aviation News. Travel Radar Media brings the latest aviation & travel news!