DRAMA IN REAL LIFE: Death and Daring at 1,500 Feet: If your pilot died mid-flight, could you bring down the plane in one piece? “It’s the stuff of nightmares. You have zero flying experience and your pilot suddenly becomes incapacitated. Would you be able to get yourself safely back on the ground? One of the few people who can definitively answer that question is John Wildey, an English retiree who, in the fall of 2013, was riding shotgun in a two-place Cessna when his friend succumbed to a massive coronary.”