Pilot Admits to Suicide Notion Before Rescue

Thomas Root, who survived after his plane wandered 800 miles along the East Coast and crashed into the Atlantic, said Saturday he did not set out to kill himself but briefly considered suicide waiting to be rescued.

“It was at that moment that--and only that moment--that I ever stared the notion of suicide right in the face,” Root said. “It sent--it was almost a jolt of electricity, right through me. The very thought running through my mind. . . . I started swimming, swimming erratically and hard, and wasted energy in the process before I calmed myself down.”

Root made his comments in an interview broadcast Saturday by radio station WSWR. Root is an owner of the station in this north-central Ohio community.

At Parents’ Home

WSWR reporter Jim Norris said he interviewed Root on Thursday at the home of Root’s parents in Plymouth, Ohio, where he has been recovering from his injuries, which included an unexplained gunshot wound.

Norris said Root left Plymouth later Saturday headed for Washington.

Root, 36, an Alexandria, Va., communications lawyer, was en route from Washington’s National Airport to Rocky Mount, N.C., July 13 when he told air traffic controllers he was having trouble breathing. He put his plane on autopilot and military planes kept watch on him until his plane ran out of fuel and ditched near the Bahamas.

Doesn’t Remember Wound

Root said he was unconscious until the plane hit the water and did not know how he received a gunshot wound to the abdomen, which doctors noticed after his rescue. He checked out of a Hollywood, Fla., hospital Monday.

Root said pain and exhaustion almost overcame him while he fought to stay afloat until rescuers could arrive.

“I hurt an awful lot while I was swimming, and I don’t know why. I knew I had a knot in my stomach. I knew it was very difficult to use my left arm,” he said.