Engine out issues aside, one thing that struck me about this accident
was the fact that these guys had so much altitude in which to glide to
a safe landing that I wonder if it was actually _too_ much altitude? I
don't know how far away the airport was that they finally decided upon
for the emergency landing attempt, but clearly they didn't succeed in
meeting their goal. Were they too complacent in thinking they'd be able
to restart the engines, given that they were nearly 8 miles up?

One of the things I always try to get on a long x-country in a 172SP is
altitude. I've only flown on the east coast of the U.S. during my short
3 years as a private pilot, and while there are lots of airports
around, there are stretches where I'd be out of gliding range from an
airport even at 10,000 feet. These guys had 4 times that, and still
couldn't make it to an airport. Was there a field that was closer and
still suitable enough for their plane to land on? Considering they were
in a no-power situation, I assume on short final they'd be coming in
pretty close to stall speed to minimize forward velocity when touching
down (tho maybe I'm wrong on that point). I just can't believe that
with all that altitude they couldn't get safely on the ground.

--
Guy