Ep013:

Crash Landing in the Pacific (Part Two)

After ditching her aircraft in the Pacific and surviving twelve-foot swells under a full moon, Heidi Porch watched search flares paint the sky while a ship hovered just out of reach—until a launch homed in on the smallest signal she had left: a whistle. Her rescuers turned out to be Soviet sailors who couldn’t communicate with the American aircraft overhead, transforming a Cold War standoff into an unexpected act of human compassion.

In this second half of Heidi’s story, we follow the rescue minute by minute—the single rocket flare that almost failed, the radio silence between nations, and the Russian crew who treated her with brisk kindness before handing her to a US vessel. From there, Heidi opens up about her years flying 747s: the calm precision behind a bird strike at JFK, the built-in redundancies that make modern aviation so safe, and the mindset that keeps a pilot composed when things go wrong. Her advice to aspiring pilots is simple and lifesaving—know your limits, and ask for help early—and for nervous passengers: sit forward, trust the crew, and know that every system up there is designed to get you home.