AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2012 - 85

happened and someone found him, he would at least let them know who he was. He stuffed the sock and the wallet with his ID inside his shorts. He also vowed not to give up without a fight. He had a wife and children, family, friends, a race car, an auto repair business to run. And so he struggled to live: treading water, dog-paddling, floating on his back with his chin on his chest to shield his mouth from the waves, all through the afternoon and the long night that followed. The offshore water was cold, but the daytime temperatures had been in the mid-90s, so there were warm currents at times and he sought them out, luxuriating in their brief comfort. Was anyone searching for him? He had seen no searchlights, heard no helicopters. At about 10:30 the next morning, with his ears and much of his head underwater, he heard it: the high-

suspense as the boat began to change course, swinging in a wide arc back in the direction from which it had come. Now it was slowing even more and pointing toward him. He kept waving the arm with the sock. Yes! It was heading his way. Yes! They had seen him after all. They were coming to save him. Oh, thank God, yes! Rescue efforts Earlier, at exactly 7 a.m., Grosse Pointe Yacht Club members Dean and Diane Petitpren—and their guests, Dennis Andrus and his wife, Marita Grobbel, and their captain Erik Krueger—cleared the dock at the club aboard Eagle’s Nest, the Petitprens’ 58-foot Viking Sport Fisherman. As they passed through the harbor opening, they laughingly congratulated each other on having departed the harbor on time for perhaps the first time any of them could remember.

Fortunately, moments before ditching, he had remembered to unlatch the door on his side of the airplane to prevent the fuselage from jamming the door on impact.
pitched whine of a powerboat. It was getting louder, coming his way. He swam with all his remaining strength back out to sea, in the direction of the sound. And then he saw it: a big, white sport fishing boat, headed north and running fast, but not that far away. He kicked furiously at the water, trying to propel his body as far above the surface as he could to make himself visible. And each time his body rose, he waved the arm with the sock until he could kick and surface no more. The engine and propeller whine was all around him now, and he could see the massive wake from the Viking’s hull just a few hundred feet to the east as it powered along. Surely they had seen him. They had to see him. They had to. But now the sound was beginning to diminish. The boat was continuing on course. Oh, God, it was going away. No, no! They hadn’t seen him. It was over. And just then the sound began to change. The engines were slowing. The boat was reducing speed. He stared in Their destination that afternoon was Presque Isle Harbor, some 220 miles to the north, near Thunder Bay, Ontario. From there they would proceed north and westward through the Straits of Mackinac, across Lake Michigan to the ghost-town port of Fayette in the Upper Peninsula, then on to Door County in Wisconsin. It was late July; the waters were calm; the winds were light and variable; and the five boaters were excited about their voyage. The only note of discord as the Eagle’s Nest headed out onto Lake St. Clair that morning was an alert from the Coast Guard, informing boaters on Lake Huron to be on the lookout for a pilot whose airplane had crashed the day before in the water near Harbor Beach. At approximately 10:15 a.m., just south of Harbor Beach, Krueger again heard the alert, but as far as he could see, the water ahead was free and clear. Diane Petitpren was on the bridge that morning and acknowledges that it was unusual, perhaps even fateful,
AOPA PILOT • 85 • MARCH 2012 AOP

Anytime. Anywhere. Anyway.

Print, online or mobile, 24/7, we’re here with everything that keeps you ying.

Tr a d e -A - Pla n e. c o m • 8 0 0 . 3 3 7.5263

http://www.anywheremap.com http://www.anywheremap.com http://www.Trade-A-Plane.com http://www.Trade-A-Plane.com

AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - March 2012