sharkey scribbled a quick note to his wife, "i expressed my love, my appreciation and the fact that i accepted death." he put the note in his wallet, thinking it might eventually be found. "and then i thought… it was almost bizarre … is this going to hurt? and how badly is it going to hurt?" the pilots eventually spotted a remote military airstrip and safely put the plane down. sharkey said that when he found out, several hours later, that the legacy jet hit a commercial airliner, he thought, "we should not be the ones walking away from this." asked, at the end of the interview, about the pilots who saved his life, he said, "i think we need to be careful about how the evidence is evaluated, because i think these guys are in some peril."