Quotes by Shane Osborn

“We did it right, ... No apologies necessary on our part.”

“they were interested in the accident first and foremost.”

“We knew that this was an unusual type of intercept,”

“He would come up, close, ... The third time his closure rate was too far. He attempted to turn and pitch up, but his vertical stabilizer impacted my number one propeller, basically pretty much tearing his aircraft apart.”

“Its not very common for a big, slow-moving aircraft to ram into a high-performance jet fighter, ... And we definitely made a sharp left turn -- that was called uncontrolled flight -- inverted in a dive after he impacted my propeller and my nose.”

“Yes, I was deprived of sleep, especially during the first few days, ... However, there was nothing physical, no touching or anything like that.”

“Definitely, I thought on the initial impact that he just killed us. And, obviously, theres 24 people on board . . . I care about every single one of them very much, and I wasnt happy with the aggressive nature of the intercept.”

“Definitely, I thought on the initial impact that he just killed us,”

“The aircraft made two close approaches, (with the pilot) making gestures, ... And then, on the third one, his closure rate was too high, and he impacted the number-one propeller, which caused a violent shaking in the aircraft. And then, his nose impacted our nose, and our nose cone flew off, and the airplane immediately snap-rolled to about 130 degrees in low bank and became uncontrollable.”

“I want to thank America, the administration and everyone involved in getting us home so quickly, ... It was a surprise and were all glad to be back. We can all be proud of this crew.”

We decided to read our emails out loud to the group in order to share the warmth and optimism the messages contained. One of the most heartwarming was from the father of Petty Officer Rodney RaRa Young of Katy, Texas. His dad got right to the point: Youd better come home because you promised to help me put up a fence, and I could really use that help. Everyone laughed because the words took us back to the normal world and out of the anxious monotony of our detention.