The Alaska Airlines/Skywest flight had to make a sudden diversion (Picture: GETTY)
A plane was forced to make a sudden diversion after the pilot revealed he was not certified to land.
The Alaska Airlines/Skywest flight was approaching Jackson Hole Airport in Wyoming on Thursday when the pilot made the confession from the cockpit.
The plane was diverted to salt Lake City, Utah, where it landed safely, with another pilot replacing the unqualified pilot and taking off to the intended destination.
Skywest told Cowboy State Daily the flight was diverted due to a lack of correct paperwork.
They said: ‘Flight 3491 landed for a short time in Salt Lake City to correct a paperwork error related to the flight crew.
‘The flight continued to Jackson Hole after a delay while a new pilot was secured to operate the flight.
‘All pilots involved were qualified to fly and land the aircraft; the flight diverted from Jackson Hole due to an internal administrative error and out of abundance of caution.’
One Reddit user, who goes by the username ‘babecityrecords’ claimed he was on the flight with his girlfriend when the pilot revealed he did not have the correct qualification.
According to the account, the pilot said: ‘Hey, I’m really sorry folks but due to me not having the proper qualification to land in Jackson Hole, we need to divert to Salt Lake City Utah. We’ll keep you posted on the next steps.’
The user wrote: ‘We then landed in Salt Lake City, they again apologized and gave us no other info, waited on the tarmac for about 1.5 hours, and then the pilot got off the plane (in a walk of shame since his bag was in the overhead in the back of the plane lol) and then a new pilot from Salt Lake City got on the plane and we flew into Jackson.’
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