In article , Jose wrote:
I'm surprised they couldn't have
glided to shore

The NY Times reported that they glided engineless for eleven minutes.
They'd have to be a balloon, or at umpty thousand feet. Of course, the
Times may have gotten it wrong.

Apparently, N2759M was a PA28-161 Warrior:

http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinqu...cmndfind .y=0

I don't know the Warriors at all, but I believe the 161 has a best glide
speed of 73 knots.

Not sure what the glide ratio is, but probably around 10:1 or so?

Yeah, thought the same thing when I heard about a 11 minute glide. ("Is
the newspaper sure that was really a powered plane, and not a glider?")

At this point, I'm just guessing this was a misreporting of some kind.
1.1 minute glide instead of 11, maybe?

I don't know how high they were, but I really can't imagine them being
VFR above or below 1500 ft, since they indicated this was a short trip
done through a VFR corridor.

-Dan