On Thursday Jun 18th 2009, the captain of a Continental Airlines Boeing 777 jet died in flight while operating flight CO 61 originating in Brussels (BRU). The aircraft was scheduled to arrive in Newark (EWR) where Continental has one of its major hubs. The captain, age 61, died of a heart attack in flight not long before preparing for the approach to Newark NJ. A cardiologist on board the flight tried to save his live. The two copilots on board took over the controls of the big jet and landed the aircraft safely at destination and on time as scheduled, it was a rainy day in the New York City area that day.
The major airlines have a policy such that a third pilot is always on board a large aircraft when operating long haul flights even if the aircraft requires only two pilots in the cockpit, the Flight Engineer's position is long gone from the major passenger airlines. The FAA passed the law that an airline captain is allowed to fly a commercial aircraft until age 65 for as long as the copilot is under 60 years of age, before that all commercial pilots had to retire at age 60 by law. The captain of flight CO 61 had his last physical check earlier this year, he had been flying for Continental for 32 years. He was based in Newark but had his home in Houston. He was going to bring chocolates from Belgium to his wife.
An airline pilot must undergo a thorough medical examination every six months during his or her career until retirement. The two copilots who took over the controls of the aircraft had been with the airline for several years and had logged thousands of flight hours according to media sources.
In 2007 another pilot of the same airline died in flight, a captain of a Boeing 757-300. The copilot and a passenger who had a private pilot licence landed the aircraft safely.
Continental is a major US airline based in Houston TX (IAH) with its other major hub in Newark NJ (EWR) as well as a smaller hub in Cleveland OH. It operates a well developed domestic and transatlantic network as well as a few routes to Latin America. It has a subsidiary Continental Micronesia operating flights out of Guam in the Pacific Ocean. Continental's mainline fleet consists of only Boeing aircraft including a large number of NG 737-700/800/900's (they still have older Classics but those will be phased out in the near term future), 757-200/300's, 767-200ER/400ER and 777-200ER. It is one of only two airlines operating the Boeing 767-400ER Series, the other one being Delta. It has ordered the all new Boeing 787. Its Express fleet consists mostly of Embraer Jets as well as a few Bombardier Dash 8 turboprops, one of which crashed in Buffalo NY. Continental is to leave the Sky Team Alliance before the end of 2009 and is then switching to Star Alliance, the plan to move to Star was announced in the summer of 2008.
