Robert Piché - Hands on Destiny

"It's him, alright!" Those who knew Robert Piché instantly reacted the  same way  when they  heard radio and TV reports that  the  pilot of an  Air  Transat Airbus A330 had just  made an  emergency landing in the  Azores after running out  of fuel - and  that all 291 passengers and  13 crewmembers were  safe  and  sound.Robert Piché is  no  stranger to "turbulence." And he  is the  first  to  wonder if the  ups  and  downs of his  life  were a necessary prelude to  the  supreme test he  would face on August 24, 2001.Journalist Pierre Cayouette's story of  an  anything-but­ ordinary life  takes on  the  semblance of  an  adventure. The tale  begins  in  Quebec on  the  snow-covered runways of the Gaspe, James Bay  and  the  Lower North Shore, and  weaves its way  to Vietnam and  the  stormy skies  over  Ho  Chi  Minh City,  back  to the American South and  a Georgia prison, then into  the  pulsating night  jungle  of Montreal, and  on  the  roads of lqaluit.Then comes that unforgettable day  when Captain Piché finds himself at the  controls of  an  aircraft  whose engines have run  out  of fuel... 39,000 feet  up... at night... in the mid­ Atlantic. A moment that will leave  you  breathless.