March 30, 2009 issue
Pastor tells of plane crash escape
By Tom Mitchell Harrisonburg Daily News-RecordHARRISONBURG, Va. — Rocky Miller’s last memory of his plane sinking into the sea was the splash.
Miller
“I remember the spray of the water coming over the aircraft,” Miller said.
During a talk March 18 at Eastern Mennonite University’s Lehman Auditorium, Miller detailed how a malfunctioning engine nearly took him and his co-pilot to a watery grave in the Caribbean.
His brush with death on Dec. 20, 2007, demanded more than resilience from the 53-year-old Mennonite pastor. The drama, said Miller, forced him to see how tenuous and precious life is, and how he should live it.
“I told my congregation the following Sunday that you never know what day you’re gonna leave this Earth,” said Miller, a 1979 EMU graduate who now lives in Sarasota, Fla., where he is senior pastor at Bay Shore Mennonite Church.
“First, you need to make peace with the Lord, and second, with the people around you. Third, never leave here without proclaiming love to your loved ones. And fourth, I told them, we need to prioritize our lives.”
Miller’s plane was en route from Bradenton, Fla., to the Dominican Republic with household items for residents there and its neighbor, Haiti, and the Bahamas.
On the way back, 31 miles from shore, the craft’s lone engine suddenly failed. Miller and his partner radioed for help, then braced for the worst.
The plane found a shallow area, about 18 feet deep, in a region of the Caribbean called the Bahama Shelf. A little farther north, said Miller, and the plane likely would have capsized in much deeper water, leaving little hope of recovery.
At impact, Miller briefly blacked out.
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