was very serene," Sharkey said. "At first it was just quiet and grimly concern." An engineer on board noticed the damaged wing was starting to peel, and Sharkey said it was then that everyone on board started to think about dying. "That’s the point in which it was clear that one way or another we were going down in unpleasant circumstances, and probably, since we couldn’t find a runway, we were going to ditch." 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." On his blog, “Joe Sharkey at Large”, Sharkey wrote about his experience and of being held for 36 hours for interrogation after the forced landing, his views on the ongoing investigation, and the public response against him and others aboard the Legacy jet. In response to Sharkey's questioning of Brazil's air traffic control infrastructure, Waldir Pires, the Brazilian defense minister stated: "I cannot anticipate testimony that may be given, for example, by this [Joe Sharkey] in the United States. It is evident, it seems to me that his personality is a little frivolous, because with the number [of accidents] we have and the statements he makes, it [Sharkey's statement] is something absolutely inadequate." Pires was later fired for his handling of the 2006–2007 Brazilian aviation crisis. In 2008, Sharkey was sued before a Brazilian court for an article in The New York Times. The widow of one of the victims claimed the article (in which Sharkey blamed the crash on incapable air operators) defamed the Brazilian people and consequently her personal dignity. Books 1990 (reprint date) Death Sentence: The Inside Story of the John List Murders 1991 Deadly