Veteran Pilot Guides Novice Pilot In Emergency Landing

A young pilot, Taylor Hash, is grateful a veteran pilot was around to guide her down into an emergency landing after she lost part of her landing gear during takeoff. Chris Yates, the former director of aviation at SpaceX, witnessed the landing gear come off and radioed the control tower to alert them of the potential disaster, but the control tower operators had never seen it happen before and didn’t know what to do.

The tower patched Yates through to the young pilot, “Taylor this is Chris, my daughter’s name is Taylor and I taught her to fly! We’re gonna be just fine kiddo,” were among the first things he said. Hash was only on her third-ever solo flight, and the anxiety was thick in her voice. She was up in a Diamond Star single-engine aircraft from Oakland County International Airport, Michigan. At the time of the incident, she had 57 total flight hours.

Yates helped calm Hash before instructing her on how to make an emergency landing. Hash would have to land without a front tire, so Yates told her to keep circling the field until she felt ready to try and land the plane. “When you touch down, I just want that stick all the way back. You’re gonna hold that stick back like you don’t want that nose to touch. “The nose is gonna come down, you’re okay, you’re okay. Talk to me. Thatta girl, proud of you” he can be heard saying over the recorded radio conversation.

Local news outlets shared another video of the landing as she managed to touch down without the nose immediately smashing into the ground. Yates said “I was thinking of my daughter and just how afraid and alone Hash probably felt.” Hash said “as soon as he said ‘thatta girl, I’m proud of you,’ the waterworks came.” Despite the frightening incident, Hash says she has no plans to give up flying.