And you have the making of a holywood epic; probably more plot than most recent remakes of remakes.

You know, if I was stranded on a tiny ice sheet in -20c weather with no sign of imminent rescue, food and water would be the least of my concerns. "Here I am, at risk of drowning in frigid water, in the pitch black on big-ass ice cube... at least this would be OK if I had a Snapple and a bag of Doritos!"

Are you sure you have that headline "straight"??

Anyways, that's a couple of really lucky guys. Beers to the fishing crew all around, I'm sure.

I'm gone already

Fantastic! With the news as it is today, it's wonderful to hear of somthing really good happening out of an almost certainly fatal situation.

Big smiley of course.

"didn't have any survival gear, or rockets or flare guns because we didn't have time to get it out of the plane"

I don't know how the situation was, and don't really want to criticize the guys, but... Couldn't one of them have grabbed some stuff in the time between sending the SOS and crashing? A couple rockets/flare guns or whatnot? Or were two people actually needed to land the thing? (I don't think so, but have no real experience) No watch, FFS?

I know pilots look smart in their suits but I thought they were just to attract the ladies? Or do all pilots fly looking like this:

http://www.guycotten.co.uk/catalog/images/t.p.s.jpg

So where can I get me one?

I know I've only done basic flight training, but when you've got an engine failure you've got your hands full. The only loose items you want in the plane are the doors, you open them so you can get out... Everything else sure as hell should be stowed otherwise it could take your head off. Between attempting to get the Mayday out, with the details of exactly where they are, trying to get the dammed engines started, and actually picking out someplace safe to touchdown... err ditch. You don't have time for... Hmmm is there a rocket in my pocket. The gear is there you know exactly where it is. You'll grab it when you can.

I for one think they were dammed fortunate, and well trained to have the "Gahh the plane sank awful fast Im glad im out of it." experience, and live to tell the tale.

For once, the Reg was right:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_strait

You could even say they were in "dire straits"!

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/strait

Sounds like some real tough guys rescued some other real tough guys.

Edwards-Neil: Nobody was coming, so we decided to walk home.

That's the spirit.

Captain Bo: "They were crying and all that"

Sounds like it made him regret picking them up. The crying and hugging must have made him uncomfortable. "Geez, it was just an arctic plane crash"

To the commenter: "I wonder what the boat was doing that could be discarded so quickly"

Some people regard human life as more important than fishing. Do unto others and all that.

It was absolute madness to by flying in that area without having personal Emergency Locator Beacons attached to their survival suits. Even if the plane has an installed ELB, it wont be much use if the plane sinks. Decent personal ELBs with GPS, which can drastically reduce search times, are under $1000.

If anyone does have an ELB, make sure it's one which operates on 406MHz as 121.5MHz will no longer be monitored by satellite after 1st February 2009.

It's always good to know that if your lost, your buddies will give up on looking you the first sign of good weather!!!

Paris...coz ..would you give up lookin for her?

The tradition at sea is: if you can respond to a mayday, you do so without question or hesitation. Even racing vessels must respond to those is distress, the ISAF (was IYRU) fundamental rule 1.1. is:

"A boat or competitor shall give all possible help to any person or vessel in danger."

IIRC a round the world yacht scuppered it own race a few years back by responding to a competitor in distress.

As to the fishing boat, they probably hauled their nets in early/dropped marker buoys and headed for the pilots. Good on them.

Indeed. An unwritten law in the sea and in the desert is assisting your fellow man. Not only because its the right thing to do, it also sets precedents for you to receive help should you ever need it.

A variation on this is the rule that the captain of a sea ship and an airplane have absolute rule when on international waters/airspace.

It sort of makes sense when you think that you are traveling without assistance and in an unsafe environment, human rights are secondary to completing the journey properly.

If no one helped each other in the sea/desert, no one one would ever travel at all. l

@David Wiernicki:

The body uses a lot of energy trying to stay warm, so lack of sustenance would indeed make things worse.

I was once trapped somewhere cold and exposed for a couple of hours (not sub-zero cold, but it was windy and raining hard), and it was a considerable help that I had water and plenty of high-energy food.

"We didn't know they'd called the search off"

WTF! After hours they decide there are no survivors so call off all searches?!! Nice to know how much effort isn't put it aint it!

Wimps. Fuc*king warm as toast. Here in Finland -40 is not unheard of. Don't try giving the missus a bit of 'How's yer Father" after nipping to the shop for a pack of Marlborough when you've experienced that!

Oh, yeah, doesn't that show all these piccies on the airline's safety cards of a plane floating on water to be utter bollocks??

(Mine's the orange flotation one)

Indeed.

An office worker in temperate climes will find 2000-2500kcal plenty.

Meanwhile a single 24h military arctic ration pack contains up to 6000kcal.

Also, in arctic conditions, "water discipline" is usually enforced. That is to say, soldiers are *ordered* to drink at frequent intervals, as they are unaware of their increased rate of respiration (in order to keep warm) which requires a corresponding increased input of water to avoid dehydration and degraded performance.

The survival time in the Arctic Ocean and Antarctic waters is reconned to be minutes about 5 if I rember my survival training correctly so it is not at all unusual for a SAR mission to be called of of there is no sign (of the plane in this case) found.No wreckage/Liferaft =No survivors.Period....

If Al Gore was correct, there would have been no ice at all.