The 78-year-old Ohio businessman freed himself from the wreckage and, though badly injured, activated an emergency signal. For nearly six hours, the letters "EMRG" flashed on radar scopes at a Federal Aviation Administration facility near Atlanta, giving air traffic controllers a general idea of Smiley's location.

Yet it was full two days before rescuers arrived. Smiley was dead. He had scrawled a last note to his wife on an envelope.