Crash Landing in the Pacific (Pilot) - Part Two

A single whistle in the dark ocean shouldn’t decide a life, yet that’s exactly how Heidi found her way home. After ditching her aircraft in the Pacific and riding 12‑foot swells under a full moon, she watched search flares sketch the sky while a ship hovered just out of reach—until a launch zeroed in on the smallest, most human signal she had left. The twist? Her rescuers were Soviet sailors who couldn’t speak to the American aircraft overhead, turning a high‑stakes night into a quiet act of Cold War compassion.

We walk through the rescue minute by minute—why timing a single rocket flare mattered, how radios failed across political lines, and how a Russian refrigeration crew treated a stranger with brisk kindness while coordinating a handover to a US vessel. From there, Heidi opens the hangar doors on a life in the airlines: the calculated calm of a 747 bird strike at JFK, fuel dumping and single‑engine procedures, and the redundancies that keep modern aviation remarkably safe. She explains what passengers actually feel versus what the cockpit manages, and why a firm crosswind landing can be the right kind of rough.

For aspiring pilots, Heidi’s core lesson is blunt and lifesaving: know your limitations and honour them. Weather, get‑home pressure, and small compromises can snowball; asking for help early is strength, not failure. For anxious flyers, she offers simple comforts—sit forward, talk to the crew, and remember these aircraft are built to fly safely even when something goes wrong. We close with her new book, Ditching the Sky, her speaking work, and the film project taking shape, all anchored by a story that blends survival, skill, and grace across borders.

If this story moved you, follow and subscribe, leave a quick five‑star review, and share it with someone who loves true survival, aviation, or both. Your support helps us bring more extraordinary voices to your ears.

Heidi’s Book "Ditching the Sky" - https://www.amazon.com/Ditching-Sky-memoir-triumph-against/dp/B0DM73M8CL

"Ditching the Sky" on Audible (narrated by Heidi) - https://www.audible.com/pd/Ditching-the-Sky-Audiobook/B0DPXXKZRB?srsltid=AfmBOopT7XrmdYwbr5HzOxP-7f_DYeW2nANyDaiafPUS_KD89X8mTD9s

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidi-porch-09783a89

Speaker Profile - https://www.aviationspeakers.com/heidi-porch

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Transcript

Recap And Stakes Rise

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Previously on No Ordinary Monday.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

My biggest fear of hitting the water was being knocked unconscious. The manes touched down, and the whole plane bounced back up into the air, and then the nose grabbed, and then it just flipped onto its back. The first instance that I had that I might die was when the plane came to a stop, and there was there was an explosion of water. And my first my thought was, this is it, I'm gonna drown. The raft was kind of moving away from the plane, and so I had to jump in the water and dog paddle over to the raft.

Nightfall, Swells, And Search Flares

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Alright, so last week we left Heidi floating alone in the middle of the Pacific. Her aircraft had sunk into the depths below, and now her raft is the only thing that stands between her and 20,000 feet of water. If you haven't heard part one yet, hit pause now so you can go back in to listen to that first. It is very much worth listening to that to get a setup for what's about to come next. Night is coming, the weather is taking a turn for the worst, and rescuers facing the possible task of finding Heidi in a tiny raft in a vast ocean. And then there's a surprise twist that takes everything. I'm Chris Barron, and this is No Ordinary Monday. Just a very quick reminder to stick around at the end of the episode, I will be sharing our first ever listener story. So with that out of the way, let's get into part two of Heidi Porch's extraordinary ordeal. So how at that point there, how long did you think in your head, like, okay, I'll have rescue in an hour or two, I'll be fine, I'll just sit and chill out here and whatever. What did you think?

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Well, this was two in the afternoon when I went in, and the last bit of information I had received was that they were going to dispatch a destroyer out of Pearl Harbor to come get me. And I was over 500 miles away from Honolulu. So I knew that it would be over 24 hours at least because I estimated the cruise speed on a destroyer is 25 knots or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Um, I knew I'd be out there all night, and um by by the time the sun set, the weather was getting much worse. So by midnight the swells were 10 to 12 feet.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

And I mean, just to give us a picture of what what's that like when you're in a raft, like is it enough to think that a wave is just gonna tip you over?

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yeah, I thought about every third swell or something there'd be water that would spray, you know, into the raft. And I thought if it gets much worse than this, I'm probably gonna capsize in in half hour to an hour. And that'll be that. Yeah. So um fortunately, uh and I'm guessing on these times because my watch, you know, stopped when I doing the crash, yeah. Yeah. Um but I noticed more airplanes were coming out instead of just one. Now there were two and three, and they were dropping a line of flares, and then on the horizon, when I'd be on the top side of a swell, on the horizon was a very bright light that I could tell was a ship.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

Yeah.

The Ship That Wouldn’t See Her

Whistle, Launch, And A Russian Surprise

SPEAKER_01 3:56

So they were leading this ship to me, and um that took about 45 minutes. And selling me, I thought, oh, it's just gonna pull right up and pick me up, you know. But um they still couldn't see me. So they they stopped about maybe uh half mile away, the ship stopped, and there's Coast Guard and Navy airplanes circling, dropping flares everywhere, and these flares would take minutes to get to the surface and just light up the sky. Now, fortunately, there was a full moon, so it was pretty bright out there, and there were two search lights on the deck of this ship, and in my supplies I had one handheld rocket flare. Yeah, and I didn't want to fire it if both search lights were looking in the opposite direction. So I waited till both searchlights were pointed towards me. I was beyond the range of their light, but I fired the flare and the ship started moving away. And that was that was the worst of the whole thing, because I thought I'm not gonna make it another half hour. Yeah, well, they were just looking at another area. What I didn't know at the time, found out afterwards, was one of the airplanes that had checked on me during the day and had dropped a sonoboid uh to keep track of me, he was going back to Hawaii to be done, and other airplanes would take over for him. Well, on his way back to Hawaii, he saw this ship and he tried calling it on the common frequency, and they didn't answer. And so he marked its location on his map and he went back and refueled. He said, I'm going back out because I know where this ship is and I'm gonna lead it to Heidi and coordinated with some other airplanes. So he did, and he flew across its bow and started dropping flares, which is maritime emergency. So the ship turned around. They didn't know who they were looking for. Was it a cruise ship, an airline, or a sailboat? They're not talking to anyone, but they're following these flares over the course of hours. And one airplane would drop two or three flares, and then they'd have to circle till the ship could catch up. Yeah, and then they'd drop more, and then they'd have to leave. Another airplane would take turns. Well, in the course of all of this back and forth, they were in touch with a US ship, the USNS Meteor, and sending it to pick me up. So this gets confusing. So finally, here I am in the raft. I had fired my one flare. They started moving away, but they were just looking in different area, and all I had left was a whistle that was packaged in the supplies. And I thought I heard the sound of a smaller engine, you know, a launch. So they had put a launch in well, I couldn't see it, but I could hear it. I go, well, if I can hear that engine, maybe they'll hear the whistle. And so I blew the whistle. I thought my cheeks would rip open. And they homed in on the whistle, and they threw me a line, and I pulled it, pulled it in, and they pulled me out of the raft and pulled my raft up, and we went down below. There was a little cabin and there was a long bench along the side, and everybody's talking and shouting in a language I don't recognize. And I finally said American. And he goes, Rusky. And I went, oh shit. Excuse me.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and for context, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

But this was the Cold War.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

So we didn't share frequencies with the Soviets. Yeah. And that's why the Coast Guard plane or Navy plane could not talk to it because we didn't share frequencies.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

But yet they were they knew someone was in trouble and they were just following flares. And yeah. And the American ship had been given the wrong coordinates.

unknown 8:46

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

And they were 20 miles south of my position, following directions from the airplanes over me saying, turn to the right. She's right in front of you. Turn to the right. She's right there. Turn to the right. And they finally said, We've done a 360-degree right turn. We don't see her. And that's when they're going, Oh my gosh, what is going on? You know, who are they? And yeah, it was very confusing.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

So basically they were looking at they are looking at the Russian vessel, thinking it was the American vessel.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Exactly. Giving it direction. And they were 20 miles away.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Gee, so this Russian vessel, like was a I guess it was just a merchant navy, or what was it? What were they doing there?

SPEAKER_01 9:31

It was uh from what I could gather, it was a refrigeration vessel carrying produce.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Oh. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

And they were headed for the Far East. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

That must have been so surreal after such an ordeal to be pulled onto a Russian vessel. And were they were they friendly?

Sick Bay, Natasha, And Tense Misreads

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Were they it was it was tense at first. And of course, I hadn't slept in a couple of days by this time because I never slept the night before a flight. And uh, you know, so fatigue and stress and all that, and they said, you know, we're we're taking you to the Far East, and I'm thinking, oh, I'm gonna end up in white slavery, or all my parents will never hear from me again. And and then uh uh they were very businesslike at first, and um of course when I got on board, I immediately was taken down to uh Sick Bay, and the doctor on board was a woman, and her name? Natasha, of course. Yeah, what else? And so she examined me and then gave me uh, she went to this medicine cabinet and pulled out a dark brown glass vial with a d eyedropper, and she put like 10 drops of this like look like iodine or something in a little bit of water, and she goes here, and I'm going, I'm good. I'm good, yeah. You know, and so now I'm thinking, oh my god, it's some drug, it's some liquid form of sodium pentathal, and they're gonna get my military secrets. And then it was like, Heidi, you don't have any military secrets, you know, but your brain just goes to crazy places. So I drank it now. I'm waiting for the room to start spinning, and I nothing, you know. But um then I talked to the radio operator, and he was with the captain. The captain did not speak English, but the radio operator did. And that's when he told me, you know, we're headed for the Far East, and you're going with us. I go, Well, can't you just drop me off in Hawaii? It's right on the way. And they go, No, yet. Uh-uh.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Yeah, Russian vessel approaching American territory, not good.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Right, right. Not talking to anyone. And so after about, you know, they took my clothes and gave me a sweatsuit to wear and let me take a bath and tried to give me some food, and I tried to say, no, I can't if I if I eat this, it's gonna come back up. And um, they were giving me uh some fried eggs and some really greasy thick bacon and toast, and I knew I was gonna throw up if I if I ate it. I found out later that when they're at sea, they would get like one egg a week. And they were rolling out the red carpet for me, giving me four, and I just kind of thumbed my nose. So I felt if I had known that at the time, I would have forced them down. But yeah, no, they came back after like 45 minutes and said, We're in touch with an American ship, it's 20 miles from here, we're coordinating a rendezvous, and we'll transfer you over. And then everybody relaxed because they didn't know who I was, what I was doing out there, you know, it must have seemed very strange to them.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Nice.

Coordinating Transfer To US Ship

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Um, and then you know, they gave me some gifts and we drank vodka, and it was an app I was kind of sorry to leave. I couldn't say that to anybody at the time because these are our mortal enemies, you know. But they couldn't have been nicer. It was and Natasha cried when I left, and yeah, it was it was pretty cool, pretty neat experience.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

I mean, we're all human at the end of the day, right? You know, it's kind of you know, really nice that everyone just accepted that here's someone in need, we helped them out, you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Yeah.

unknown 13:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

And so you they they you the liaison the American vessel, and then you finally got on, and then that was you kind of big sigh of relief all the way home kind of now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Yeah. And it took um probably around twenty eight hours to get to Pearl.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Uh that's where they were headed. And um so it gave me some time to I asked for some paper the next day, and I just wrote down everything I could remember about the last couple of days, and because I knew I'd forget as the years went on, and yeah, and uh came into Pearl just before sunup. And of course, being a World War II buff, uh, the captain let me come up to the bridge as we were coming into Pearl Harbor, and he he told me all about well, this is where the Japanese flew in on the first attack, and and I mean it was absolutely fascinating. It was really cool.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

I mean, something like the the malfunction or the issue that you experienced. I mean, how often does that happen in general to a pilot in their career, would you say?

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Well, at the time, there were only in the United States, there were three companies, ferry companies that did this. And worldwide, maybe only 27 pilots that did it for a living. Wow. I was on my 10th overwater delivery, which means about 60 ocean crossings.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Yeah.

Return To Pearl And Reflection

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Um, my best friend, mentor, someone that we probably would have gotten married, he flew for Transair. Also, he ditched on his 99th delivery within 50 miles of where I went in and died. And so, you know, he had done almost a hundred deliveries, and this was the first time. Um, my wingman Earl, he he ended up putting one in now. Yeah, he was able to get hold of uh a cruise ship going to Hawaii, and he was able to ditch the airplane on the downwind side that the ship turned sideways so it caused smooth water, and he ditched there, and they had a boat in the water already, and he only got wet up to his knees and got a free cruise to Hawaii.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Yeah. I mean, that sounds like he planned it almost.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yeah. And he had been doing it, you know, for 10 years, delivering airplanes. So you know, it wasn't, I'd say uncommon, but um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

But the thing is that I think for many people, um that kind of experience might have grounded them, but not for you, as it seems.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

No, I had absolutely no qualms about flying again. So a couple of weeks after I got back, um, I picked up an airplane in Wichita and flew it to California, but I flew over the interstates the whole way.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

I was like, you know, and then I'd go, wait, did the engine just kind of surge? Yeah, I was very hypersensitive.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

Yeah.

Rare Ditchings And Ferry Flying Risks

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Um, but that didn't last long. But I lost most of my survival equipment in the the ditching, and that's your own responsibility. Um, and I would have done another overwater flight just to get back on the horse, but I found out from a dear friend of mine that my parents absolutely hated me doing these flights, but they never told me because they knew how important it was to me.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

And I thought, you know, I don't need to do this again if it distresses them so much. So it's time to move on. And so then I started looking for a job with a regional uh airline and got a job in Denver flying uh metro liners for pioneer airlines of feeder commercial kind of airline, yeah. And that's a natural stepping stone onto the the major airlines.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

That's great. So that's probably an unusual route compared to like your colleagues. Yeah, right. Uh that kind of went the traditional route. Oh my god, that is uh extraordinary. Um you obviously that experience um you know didn't didn't ground you. You got into commercial um flying, you know, regional stuff and then the bigger stuff and then large aircraft. And I guess, you know, that kind of incident and emergency, like did you have anything, like maybe not that scale, but did you have anything as a commercial airline pilot that kind of was an emergency or something that was a bit like hairy?

Back To Flying And Family Choice

Airline Emergencies And Redundancy

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Yeah, the the biggest, well, there's always minor malfunctions that occur. Um, whether it's in your hydraulic system or electrical system, or maybe a generator goes offline, but you know, you've got so many redundancies in the airlines that there's always backups and and that, and the training is exceptional uh with the airlines. But I was uh I guess the biggest thing that happened to me was on a flight on the 747, and we our route was from JFK, New York to Tokyo, and it's a long flight, it's over 12 hours, and so you are at your max gross takeoff weight, which was 870,000 pounds, you know, really heavy. Yeah, and it was my turn to fly. I was uh first officer, right? See, we had four pilots in the cockpit. And if you've been to JFK, you know the runways are right close to the water. And so we were taking off, and we're rolling down the runway, and way off in the distance, in the middle of the runway, I can see some seagulls. And normally it's not a big deal, they fly off before you get close to them. But I'm building up speed, 100 knots checks, 120, 140, and I go, guys, the birds are not moving. And now the captain says, V1, rotate, we're committed. And just as I lift the nose up, I hear there was this very rapid vibration. Well, obviously, we hit some seagulls, so we continue the takeoff. We didn't want to raise the gear because we didn't know if we had damaged the gear. And you're supposed to make a left turn right after takeoff. And the tower said, you know, start your left turn, and you know, your gear is still down. And we said, Roger, we hit some seagulls on rotation, send a car out to inspect the runway before you let another airplane take off. And we went out over the water, climbed up to five or six thousand feet in order to dump fuel so we'd be light enough to come back in and land. But we didn't know if we had damaged the gear, the flaps, the leading edge. So one nice thing about having an extra crew is the captain, the one of the two captains, went down below, looked out the windows, inspected the leading edge of the wings, the flaps goes were good. So we raised the flaps, and I'm continuing to fly. And this is something that you practice in the SIM for years, you know, and but hopefully it never happens in real life. Um the first officer who's sitting behind me, as I'm concentrating on flying the airplane, he's looking up at the engine instruments. He goes, Look at the vibration miter on number two engine. Well, obviously, we'd taken some sequels through that engine, so we had to shut that engine down. Jeez. And um, I I don't know if I should tell you this or not, but it was really fun because you do it in the simulator all the time, and it was so much easier in the airplane. It was, yeah, it was like, okay, this is how we do it. And um, yeah, so we dumped fuel for 53 minutes, came back in and landed, and came to stop, went to the ramp area, stopped. Um, I went outside, we did to inspect it, and the the fan blades on the engines are made of titanium. And in the number two engine, it looked like somebody had just torn them. Like five blades, titanium. So we took two seagulls through the number two engine, and the nose strut hit the other two seagulls, and they hit right at a spot where there were hydraulic lines and landing lights and all this, and they didn't hit any of that stuff, they just hit the the main part of the strut. Yeah, but um yeah. So we were on the ground for four hours, and then we were airborne again on a different uh plane that was in there, and they turned that one, and now we're going to Tokyo's a long day. Yeah, but that's the biggest thing that I had happen on um mechanical. I've had people that died on a flight, you know, medical situation and and stuff where we've had to divert like into anchorage to get them medical attention and you know, a little mechanical experience.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

As a passenger um on a plane, like I'm just imagining being a passenger sitting on that side of the aircraft and watching take out the window, I'd go, hmm, that was unusual.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Um is that supposed to happen too?

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Is that supposed to happen?

Bird Strike On A 747

SPEAKER_01 24:45

Like would they see like anything and then like freak out or normally if it's a um well they definitely hear something and there was that vibration, so they'd sense that. Uh I don't know that there was much smoke coming out of the number two because we shut it down.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Um, and there was no indication of fire or anything like that. So they probably really wouldn't have seen too much. They would have felt it. And of course, as soon as we can, you know, first number one, fly the airplane.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

You know, and deal identify the the problem and but try to make a PA and explain to people exactly what's going on. And hey, we practice this type of emergency all the time. And um, you know, even for people that you see uh videos that people take of, you know, a fire or something.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Um fire is is a big deal on a plane, but nine times out of ten, you can extinguish that fire. And people are under the misconception that if you lose an engine on a multi-engine jet liner, it's gonna fall out of the sky. You know, these airplanes can't be certified unless they can fly on one engine. Uh and again, the redundancies of all the peripheral systems, it really is quite safe. Yeah, very safe. Yeah. Yeah. I mean statistics speak themselves, don't they? Yeah. I tell people if they're if they get anxious, uh try to sit as far forward as you can on a plane, because the furth furthest back that you feel like you're in a tube and you feel closed in and things are amplified. And so if you are nervous, try to sit forward. Also, most flight crews love it when passengers come up during boarding or or declining. Stick your head in the cockpit, say hi. If you've got questions, you know, hey, are we gonna have turbulence on this flight or this or that? And you know, we love it. Yeah. So don't don't be shy about about doing that.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

But yeah, starting over the and I know that the the flight crews are heavily trained in and dealing with not just doing their jobs, the safety, but also dealing with people and uh nervous people and that as well. So yeah. Um I guess, you know, not just the passengers, but for aspiring pilots, I mean, these days, like what kind of, you know, anyone listening to this and they're going, oh my god, you know, even though you know, pilots doing counteremergencies, I would still love to do that job. Like, kind of what is through all your experience and all the amazing different aircraft and the different jobs you've had in the airline industry, have you got like a key piece of advice that you would impart to anyone that really wants to do that as a job?

Passenger Anxiety And Crew Comms

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Uh the biggest piece of advice, and this is for in your early days when you're trying to accumulate your flight hours and get your ratings and that. And I was fortunate enough to have a couple of mentors that were truly amazing. They were both retired airline pilots and that. And basically they said, know your limitations. Okay, so if you end up in a situation, let's say you're you're doing one of your cross-country flights that you need to check off in order to get your commercial license or your private whatever, and there's some weather ahead, and you go, well, it doesn't look that bad, you know, and I can head over here where clouds don't seem to be, but you don't have an instrument rating yet. Know your limitations and honor that. And don't have get homitis where, you know, because it's it's when things happen in a plane, it's typically not one reason or one occurrence that gets you in trouble. It's little snowballing events that build and build. And so be aware of that. And um and if you do find yourself in a situation where you feel really uncomfortable, do not hesitate to ask for help because people want to help you, you know, you just have to ask for it. Um so if you call for help and it turns out you didn't need it, great. But if you really need help and you don't ask for it till it's too late, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:47

As a as a passenger these days, do you sort of judge, you know, because you you've so experienced, do you judge the pilots? I can imagine.

Advice For Aspiring Pilots

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Yeah, you can't help. Like the ones that get me are when I'm And I won't name any airlines, but uh Mana, like original or airline that they might do six legs in one day. So they're getting a lot of takeoffs and landings. And they'll come in and the weather will be fairly nice and they pound it on. I go, you know, you you're getting so many landing. Can you land it a little bit smoother? So that always kind of gets me. But I do uh appreciate when I know if there's a really strong crosswind and turbulence and the plane's coming in and the wings are rocking, and I can tell the nose is not lined up with rum, which tells you there's a strong crosswind. And you want to touch down firmly on that, you don't want to float it because that'll drift you off the runway. So you want to plant and on those landings, I always go up and say, That was a really nice landing. You had to work for that one, didn't you? And they go, Yeah, I really did, and they appreciate that I can recognize that they had to work for it. There you go. Where a lot of passengers don't get that and they go, Man, you landed that one pretty hard. And you feel like say, if you only knew how difficult this was, but you can't say that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

There you go. Yeah, next time you're on a flight and you get a good landing, give you know, give the captain some love, you know?

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Yeah, they really uh appre appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. Because they try to do their best.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

And uh Heidi, listen, I want to say thank you so much for for taking the time and sharing your story. It's absolutely extraordinary. Um I mean, uh what if what have you got to um what have you been up to in terms of things people can find you? You've got some work coming out. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Well, after 40 some years um of friends and co-workers telling me that I really needed to write a book about my fairy flying days, and that I finally did. Retirement gave me that opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

So uh I wrote a book. It's called uh Ditching the Sky. Can I hold up a copy? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Please copy. Yeah, yeah.

Judging Landings And Giving Credit

SPEAKER_01 32:26

It is uh mostly about you know my experience ditching in the ocean and and that, but a lot of stories that we didn't have the time to go into. And I'm with a uh aviation speakers bureau. So I I go around the country and give presentations and that uh for people that are interested in hearing my story, and and there's been some interest in making the book into a a movie. So I'm working with a producer and a screenwriter right now, and we are ready to start knocking on doors and seeing if we can find a a film company that'll take on the project.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

That's so cool. Have you have you sort of thought about or any wish lists for who would sort of play you in a movie? That's kind of always a big question, but you know, you actually have a real opportunity to think about that.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

My wish list at the top of my wish list uh for me is um Florence Pugh. Yeah. She's amazing. Uh she was in the latest Marvel movie, but she's done a lot of varied roles. Her acting is just fantastic, and she's about the same age that I was, and I hear she has a little bit of Daredevil in her, so this might be a story that would appeal to her, but she would be my first choice. Yeah. So I'm I'm hoping somehow to get hold of her agent or something and see if she'd be interested.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

That'd be so cool.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

I mean, is there anywhere if you got a website or anything that people can follow or um, you know, I that's my next project is to have a website, but if you just uh Google my name, you know, Heidi Torch, like on the front of a house, and um some stories will come up about the ditching and then my book uh information on that, and also uh the aviation speakers bureau, they can find me through that as well. But I'm hoping to have a a website up in the next month or two.

Book, Talks, And Film Hopes

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Amazing. Well, we'll once you have it up, I'll put it on our website and we'll put a picture of the book and everything. And uh so people are looking for more information that'll all be on our website as well. So um hopefully. Fingers crossed for a movie with Florence Pugh, you know? Yeah, that'll be incredible. Um, so yeah. Heidi, thank you so much again for for your taking the time and sharing the story. It's been fantastic speaking with you.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

Well, Chris, I really enjoyed talking to you. This has been filmed. It's my first podcast visual. So I'll is it?

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Oh, it's so cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Yeah, yeah. So it was fun. It was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, hopefully it's not the last. I'm sure your story will be out there um in many other ways, shapes, and forms. So look forward to that.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Great. Thank you so much.

Host Wrap, Next Guest, And Listener Story

SPEAKER_00 35:29

And that is a wrap on this week's episode. A huge thanks to Heidi for being so open and uh and sharing her story across these two episodes. And of course, a huge thanks to you all for listening as well. Um, if tonight's episode left you wanting to know more about Heidi and her story, maybe getting in there before the uh hopefully the Hollywood version comes out, fingers crossed, you'll find all of it in Heidi's book, Ditching the Sky. And there's links to Heidi's book and other photos and information that can be found on our website. Uh, that is NoOrdinarymonday.com. We also have our socials, we are No Ordinary Monday on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn, as well as some others as well, with lots of cool bonus stuff to check out there, and it's also where you can reach out to us with questions or feedback on the show. Now, a quick sneak peek into next week's episode. Since we are now in peak spooky season, my guest is world-renowned parapsychologist and paranormal investigator Lloyd Auerbach. For over 40 years, he has used credible scientific methods to try and understand psychic phenomena, hauntings, and other bizarre happenings. And plus, his big no ordinary Monday story is all about the key case that convinced him that there is something beyond death. So hit subscribe now so you don't miss out on that episode. Now, as promised, before we finish, here is our very first listener story segment. It's not really so much of a listener story because it's one of my stories, but I thought I would go first just to give you guys a kind of an idea of the sort of fun stories I'd love to share at the end of the show. So this story uh is basically from the early days of my career in television. I was a researcher at the BBC in London. And basically that's a researcher is someone who basically finds stories for a show, you know. So this was basically a science show for the BBC, and one of the stories I was looking into uh was about the gut microbiome. And so basically, we wanted to take our presenter and do like a genetic profile to see what kind of microbes were living in his gut. And I'd found a lab in Ireland that could do all this sort of you know genetic processing and figure out what uh what the microbes were in his gut, but of course they needed uh a fecal sample, a poop sample from our presenter. The challenge was our presenter was in Boston, the lab was in Ireland, and I was in London, and we had about a week or so before the studio recording where these results were supposed to be presented. So I needed to find a way to get the presenter's poop sample from his hotel where he was in Boston to Ireland as fast as possible. I called FedEx and they wouldn't handle it, they said it was a biohazard or something, so I had to find like another specialist courier that handled like biological material. Um I had no idea of this stuff at the time, it was all sort of new to me. And then the second thing is I also had to find like this specialist piece of equipment or specialist kit, like a test kit, for the presenter to sort of deposit his sample into um sort of safely and and and securely for the transport. So this was all against the clock. I had like a matter of like a day or so to try and figure out this problem because the time it took to get to the lab and do the processing and all that kind of stuff. But miraculously, I had found this company uh that had made these specific kits, like five minutes' drive from the presenter's hotel, and the guy on the phone was really nice. He basically said, Yep, no worries, I'll take it down there myself, and hand delivered the kit to the hotel and the lobby. The presenter then did his business and the courier picked it up uh like an hour or two later and it was shipped to Ireland. And then a few days later, we got all the results for the recording. So it was just one of those experiences where I just sort of sat back and we all had it all done, the problems were all solved, and it went really well, thinking I sometimes have a very strange job, but uh but I love it, it was so much fun. Okay, so that's it for the first story. Um, if you have any fun or weird or interesting work stories, please send it in and I will read it out at the end of the episode. Uh, you can head to our website and click on the listener story tab, or you can just email me at hello h e l o at no ordinary monday.com. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please just do two really quick things for us. Just click five stars, it just takes a second. And if you have time, leave a quick review, and then tell a family member or friend, spread the words. It really helps us grow and bring in more extraordinary guests for you guys, and we can reach more listeners. And that's it. Uh, this show is produced, hosted, and edited by me, Chris Baron. Thank you so much for listening. Have a great month, everyone, and we will see you next week!