Like his wife, Patrick Swayze was a licensed, experienced pilot with Instrument Rating (authorised to fly using only the instrument panel to navigate).
In 2000, while flying with his dogs in a twin-engine Cessna from Southern California to his ranch in Las Vegas, Patrick Swayze experienced what he called a "pressure bump" or pressurisation failure while flying over Prescott Valley, Arizona. He began looking for an emergency air strip. After passing on two options once he spotted people on them (it was the middle of the afternoon), Swayze finally found a street inside the Mingus West suburban community. Before the plane came to a stop, Swayze's Cessna first bounced off the ground, knocked out a pair of street light poles, clipped a street sign, and thumped a utility box.
