A prominent Duke University professor died after suffering a medical emergency while piloting a single-engine plane.

A passenger took over the controls and managed to land safely at Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

ABC11 reports that Joseph Izatt, the chair of the biomedical engineering department at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering, was piloting the plane.

From ABC11:

Cell phone video from an eyewitness showed those dramatic moments of paramedics loading a person into the back of an ambulance.

The video was shot by Evan Caulfield. He was minutes away from dropping his daughter off for a commercial flight. Caulfield is part of the group Fuquay Fire Buffs and is always listening to his scanner radio.

“I knew I was witnessing something,” he said.

The plane took off around 3:30 p.m. according to Flight Aware and came back around 4:50 pm.

RDU said someone in the passenger seat took over the controls of the Cirrus SR-20 after the pilot was “slumped over the controls,” according to air traffic control audio.

The tail number on the back of the plane is registered to Coherent Aviation, which comes back comes to a North Raleigh home and Joseph Izatt.

One of Izatt’s mentees confirmed that Izatt was at the controls when this happened.

Duke Today wrote:

Joseph Izatt, the Michael J. Fitzpatrick Professor of Engineering and chair of Duke’s Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME), passed away on Sunday, April 7.

Since joining Duke in 2001, Izatt served the university through dedicated service to his students and colleagues, and as a pioneering researcher. During his tenure as chair of Duke BME, he championed the successes of all within the community and worked with faculty, staff and students to ensure the department supported their goals.

In a message Monday to the Duke Engineering community, Pratt School Dean Jerome Lynch celebrated Izatt’s career and leadership. “He was an exceptionally thoughtful leader who weighed every decision with a care that originated with his deep love for the BME community. The integrity and humility he brought as a school leader will be missed.”

Izatt was a skilled researcher and inventor who played a foundational role in the development of optical coherence tomography (OCT). The non-invasive medical imaging technique uses optical interferometry to peer through layers of soft tissue, such as the retina at the back of the eye, to provide richly detailed images that guide diagnosis and treatment decisions.

Izatt’s decades-long interdisciplinary collaboration with Dr. Cynthia Toth, a medical doctor and Duke professor of ophthalmology, helped bring this research directly to patients. Their work to improve the accuracy of examination and surgery of the eye led to handheld OCT systems for infants and the first intraoperative OCT-guided system for surgery.

Inside Edition reports:

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.


We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.