"Out of fuel, out of hope: 'Help, I'm in the water'"

wrote in message
ups.com...
Out of fuel, out of hope: 'Help, I'm in the water'
A 20-year-old from Springfield who had hoped to swim in the Olympics
was flying a single-engine plane to his college in Wisconsin late
Monday night when he ran out of fuel over Lake Michigan.
at http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20050...5912-7691r.htm

Bad day. Assuming bad planning, idiotic, of course. I often take the risk
of needing to rely on the plane to keep flying for about 5 minutes when
crossing cold water if I've already been in cruise for awhile. The odds of
the engine quitting in that five minutes of an hour plus long flight are
pretty slim and I'm OK with them. On trips across Lake Ontario in the cold
season, I take the extra time to stay within glide distance of shore.
Knowing you are almost 100% dead five or ten minutes before you lose
consciousness, and while you still have a few minutes to talk to people, is
*such* a lousy way to go. Barring ditching next to a ship (a real
possibility) there is little hope if you're more than a hundred metres from
shore. And, for many, even that's pushing it. I used to go to a private
school where we'd run a few miles and then swim about a hundred feet in a
Northern Ontario lake right up until Xmas break. In +4 degree water, even a
hundred feet wears you right down. I really feel for his survivors
(although their religious reasoning on the affair escapes me).

m