Crash Pilot Survives 17 Hours Floating in Lake Huron

A New York pilot has miraculously been rescued after his small plane crashed in Lake Huron, leaving him to swim and drift in the water without a life jacket for over 17 hours.

Officials say Michael Trapp, 42, was buoyed by an unsinkable sense of humor.

"He never lost his sense of humor," said Sid Schock, the Harbor Beach police chief. "The first thing he said was, 'If a 13-year-old girl could swim across the English Channel, I can survive overnight.'"

Trapp, from Gouverneur, N.Y., was flying from New York to Chippewa Falls, Wis., when a fuel problem led him to report a mayday before he lost contact with the Federal Aviation Administration around 5 p.m. on Tuesday.

"He ended up stalling the airplane into the lake, with the engine not running. Upon impact, the airplane flipped over," said Huron County Chief Kelly Hanson in a statement. "He then escaped the airplane as it sank seconds later."

Trapp's plane crashed 17 miles from Michigan's shore, according to the Coast Guard, and he swam 15 miles before rescue

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