Accidents
Legacy 600 Passenger Recalls Midair Collision
I write this on October 15, my 60th birthday.
Joe Sharkey and damaged Legacy
Joe Sharkey was one of the passengers in this Embraer Legacy 600 that was involved in a midair collision in Brazil. (Photo courtesy of the author)

I write this on October 15, my 60th birthday. I have tried not to be flippant about any aspect of this story. I am unceasingly aware that my astonishing luck to be alive today coincided with the horrible fate of 154 people who plunged to their deaths on September 29. That was when the seven people aboard a new Embraer Legacy 600, me among them, inexplicably survived a midair collision with a Gol Airlines Boeing 737-800 at 37,000 feet above the Amazon rainforest.

But I do think how fortunate I am today not to have been the subject of a 400-word newspaper obituary two weeks earlier with the headline, “Travel Columnist Joe Sharkey, 59.” A lot of people–myself included, until recently–would have a small problem with the idea of turning 60.

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