A pilot who suddenly lost his sight while flying solo at 15,000ft survived unhurt after an RAF emergency rescue operation guided him to the ground.

Jim O’Neill, 65, who had suffered a stroke mid-flight, was recovering in hospital yesterday after his extraordinary escape. Flight controllers made six initial attempts to talk him down but failed each time because even though it was the middle of the day and the skies were clear, the stricken pilot was unable to see two runways as he repeatedly flew over them.

Finally, an RAF pilot flew alongside the retired businessman, zigzagging in his Tucano T1 jet trainer because he could not fly slowly enough to keep pace with Mr O’Neill’s four-seater Cessna. A seventh landing attempt also had to be aborted but at the eighth attempt Wing Commander Paul Gerrard, aided by radar controllers, managed to shepherd Mr O’Neill safely to ground at RAF Linton-on-Ouse, near York, talking to him throughout the landing.

RAF staff said yesterday that “the civilian” kept apologising throughout his ordeal, saying repeatedly: “I’m so sorry, sir. I just can’t see.”

When the Cessna eventually came to a halt at the very end of the runway, after bouncing twice on landing, Mr O’Neill was met by emergency crews and taken to hospital. Sergeant Richard Eggleton, a radar operator at the RAF base, said: “You’d think we were all jumping up and down in celebration when he landed, but actually it was quiet. There was just this big sigh of relief. Normal British reserve, I guess.” Douglas O’Neill, the pilot’s son, said that his father had survived a terrible ordeal. “If you were walking down the road or driving a car it would be bad enough, but at 15,000ft it’s a whole different ball game,” he said.

“My father had a fairly sudden loss of vision and he knew he was in trouble. He thought to himself, ‘If I don’t land this plane, I’ll be dead.’ The RAF did a wonderful job to get his wheels down on the ground. They saved his life and my family owes them a tremendous ‘thank you’.”

Mr O’Neill, 37, is the managing director of Inntel, a conference and event management agency, which was founded in 1984 by his father, who has been a pilot for 18 years. Mr O’Neill Sr had been visiting family in Glasgow, had left Prestwick at 11am on Friday last week and had been due to land at a private airfield near Colchester four hours later.

He was flying above Carlisle, 40 minutes into the flight, when he suddenly realised that his flight instruments had become blurred. Initially, he thought that the bright sunlight had obscured his view. Medical tests later revealed that he had suffered a stroke, caused by a blood clot that was pressing against his optic nerve, causing him to go blind in one eye and leaving limited vision in the other.

Mr O’Neill contacted flight traffic control and was put in contact with the North Yorkshire RAF base at 12.15pm. Sergeant Eggleton said that by then the four-seater Cessna was at 5,500ft and, as it descended to 4,500ft, veering off course, it became clear that the pilot was in serious trouble. The closest airfield was Full Sutton, 20 miles from Linton, which is sandwiched between a prison and an industrial estate. Four times Mr O’Neill was guided to fly over the airstrip and on each occasion he could not even spot the buildings, let alone the runway.

It was next decided to redirect him to Linton, a former RAF bomber base, where Prince William underwent part of his flight training this year, which has a much bigger runway. After two more failed efforts to guide him to the correct location, RAF air traffic control called for back-up in the form of Wing Commander Gerrard, 42, a former Tornado display pilot. He is about to become the chief flight instructor at Linton and was already airborne, flying a training sortie in the Tucano T1, which is used to train future fast-jet pilots and has a top speed of 325mph.

The Cessna’s top speed is 125mph. “Cool, calm and collected” was how a spokesman at the RAF base described the collective efforts to bring Mr O’Neill to safety. Wing Commander Gerrard ensured that the two aircraft were between 250ft and 500ft apart, but had to keep a weaving course to stay within range of the slower Cessna.

He talked reassuringly to Mr O’Neill throughout, using basic instructions such as “right a bit . . . left a bit . . . gentle right turn”. Forty-five minutes after the plane had first come on to Linton’s radar screen, Mr O’Neill landed safely. Wing Commander Gerrard said he was “just glad to be able to help a fellow aviator in distress”. Mr O’Neill is being treated at a hospital in Essex. His son said that his sight appeared to be returning, gradually. He can now see the clock on the wall in his hospital room but is not yet able to read the time.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Tree stump 'shows image of Virgin Mary'
• BBC drops Strictly judge for younger model
• Trafalgar Square 'reduced to a spectacle'