Plane Guided Into Landing After Equipment Failure

A North Texas flying instructor and his student had to get some help landing their plane after one of their instruments malfunctioned.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Lynn Lunsford says the instructor and his student had taken off in a single engine plane from an airport in Addison Sunday morning on a training flight to College Station.

Before arriving, the instructor discovered his attitude indicator -- a gyroscope needed when landing through clouds and bad weather-- wasn't working.

Stewart Pearcy, a Houston flight controller, talked the instructor through the landing.

Pearcy says he had the instructor fly 30 miles away from the airport and come in on a straight path through the clouds, guided in by a beacon that is part of an airport's landing system.

The plane landed safely.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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