Scientists mystified by people who put the lives of strangers over their own

By Christopher Mcdougall
Mens Health
Copyright 2007 Microsoft

WASHINGTON — Like all great mysteries, this begins with a corpse. On January 13, 1982, Air Florida Flight 90 smashed nose-first into the rock-solid ice covering the Potomac River just outside Washington, D.C. To horrified onlookers, it seemed impossible that anyone could be alive inside the mangled steel carcass slowly vanishing into the water. But one by one, six survivors gasped to the surface and grabbed desperately at the tail of the plane.

They'd had to swim up past their dead friends and seatmates and spouses to escape. They knew that unless they were pulled out, fast, they'd soon be sinking back down to join them. Just hanging on was agony: The six survivors had fractured arms and shattered legs, and their hands were freezing into claws that slipped from the wet steel.

"Help us!" they screamed. "We're going to die out here!"

They were only 40 or so yards from the Virginia shore but surrounded by an arctic nightmare of jagged ice. Pushing a rescue boat into those shards would be suicide. Piloting a chopper into the whipping snowstorm would be nearly as risky — that's what brought the plane down in the first place.

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