Ditching the Sky

Heidi's story is extraordinary. Imagine being 540 miles from land, with nothing but water in sight, and then experiencing every pilot's worst nightmare - a complete engine failure. Heidi's fixed-gear Cessna bounced off the ocean's surface, flipped onto its back, and began to sink. What followed was a nine-hour ordeal, battling 10-foot seas in a tiny life raft, with the shadow of the Cold War looming as she was finally rescued by a Soviet vessel. Her story is not only one of survival, but of aspirations realized, love found, and then lost, and how childhood trauma became of source of strength to be called upon. It is a harrowing tale of courage, resilience, and the enduring human spirit.