I'm not a pilot, so I've never had the opportunity to fly a plane from Monterey, California to Hilo, Hawaii. If I did though, being a cautious kind of guy, I'd like to think I would have done the math to make sure I was going to have the gas to MAKE it to Hawaii, before making half-way there.
Apparently, Charles Brian Mellor, of Spain, decided that kind of pre-planning is for sissies, because he didn't figure out he wasn't going to have enough fuel until he was about 500 miles from the Hawaiian coastline.
Oops.
Now, he is alive to tell the story because the men and women of the United States Coast Guard are highly trained professionals, and very, very good at their jobs. When Brian radioed for help, the Coast Guard responded promptly. A HC-130 flew out and met him, and they proceeded to step him through the correct way to ditch a plane in the ocean, while a helicopter was standing by to pluck him out of the water.
That's a happy ending. If I wasn't having a good day, I might say that Brian was dumb, and that that dumbness should be punishable by death, but I had a pretty good day. I do hope though, in a situation like this, his insurance doesn't replace the plane, and that the Coast Guard sends him a bill for the airtime of one HC-130 and one rescue helicopter. I'm always curious how things work in a rescue situation like this.
Stupidity like this does not necessarily deserve the death penalty(he deserved to be rescued), but it's fine by me if it's soooooo painful that you wish you were dead.
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