At Least It Wasn't the Swine Flue That Got Him

A Continental Airlines flight carrying 247 passengers from Brussels landed safely in Newark yesterday after the pilot died somewhere over the Atlantic. He had apparently suffered a heart attack in midflight, and attempts to revive him were unsuccessful.

Aside from an announcement asking if there was a doctor on board, the passengers had no clue that anything was amiss. They were never told that the pilot had died.

That's probably a good thing. If they had been told, there probably would have been another two dozen heart attacks on that plane.