Replies

All nine of you calmly make your way out of the aircraft and don your life jackets.

You are floating in approximately 70 degree water.

4 between 100-200 yards (estimates were 300 yards)from shore.(some were able to stand in the water even though the plane crashed in 50 feet of water)

Within minutes, an aircraft circles overhead so you know you’ve been spotted.

5 The weather is clear, winds are 10-15 MPH,(18mph) swells are about six feet(no way—2-3feet at most) and water occasionally splashes your face. For at least 25 minutes, you manage to stay in a group but after the plane starts to sink, you begin to drift apart. Two here, two there.

One man swims ashore.(a former army guy I believe swam to shore in 6 minutes older guy) You can see and hear the rescue helicopters.

Yes it was a terrifying ordeal but you made it out safely, you are floating in a life jacket, holding on to the hand of your friend and co-worker, and help is on the way. Then, inexplicably, with your life jacket still on, you drown. No one else drowns, just you.

Not only do you drown, but no one sees you drown, not even the man who has been holding your hand. And, once you lost consciousness or died, your friend lets go of you and you float away, out into the ocean. How did you drown? Why didn’t anyone see you drowning? And why did your friend let you drift away?(Actually there were frogmen who took her to the closest smoke buoy about a 1/2 mile away)

There is more a lot more.

The six minutes to shore may be generous.

Two days after the crash, a KITV4 News video reported: "Before beginning his mile-long swim back to shore, Hollstein noticed State Health Director Loretta Fuddy clinging to her deputy, Keith Yamamoto."

We can see Hollstein's "noticing" at the 10:13 mark in the video. A mere 4 minutes, 38 seconds later, he is seen trudging the last yards to shore, his life jacket more than a foot out of the water.
At the 10:13 mark, the videographer's lenses are pointed out to sea, with Holstein perhaps 20 yards away. Hollstein is seen a couple more times prior to 14:51, as the former Green marks passes by the videographer, some 10 yards to the west of him. In the last minute or so of Hollstein's swim, the videographer is pointing his lenses toward land.

Hollstein exited the water no far from the approach end of Runway 5.

On his FaceBook page, the videographer does undercut Hollstein's "mile-long swim" by using the phrase "we were about about a half mile out from land," which was of course untruthful as well, but since he was poised somewhat in the midst of Hollstein's path, what he said bears some semblance to the truth. Not to be completely out-done by Hollstein's incredible exaggeration, the videographer more fully wrote: We were about half mile out from land. In my thought process I told myself "I can make that swim". So, I said I'm going to try and head towards the shore. Another person was about to do the same trek to shore. Thats when we broke away from the group to make it to shore. I was constantly mumbling to myself that "I swam farther than this before, I can make it!".

For what it's worth, there was no mumbling to be heard on the videographer's recording as he progresses toward shore.

The salvor said the wreck was found over a 100-foot debris-field some 200-300 yards from shore. Where the plane occupants where as Hollstein began his trek was about 85 yards SW of the plane. A reasonably close estimate of the length of Hollstein's swim to shore: 200 yards.

What storytellers that pair make! With their 1/2 mile and mile times, they both could have rewritten the World and Olympic record books!