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bones. We would die quickly from hypothermia if we didn't drown like rats trapped in the sinking fuselage.
    A heavy weight was pressing against my arms and legs, pinning me against the seat. It had to be the berg ens they must have rolled on to my side in the crash. I thrashed about in the darkness trying to work myself free and push aside the packs. They were sodden with water and weighed a ton, and there seemed no end to them.
    At last I broke free and swam upwards, trying to picture in my mind where the entrance hatch would be. With everything turned upside down and only a faint emergency light to guide me it was next to impossible to orient myself. And I was running out of air fast.
    Swimming was a huge effort. My body felt heavy and clumsy in its waterlogged clothes. I didn't want to innate my life vest in case it pinned me up against the floor, unable to reach the hatch. Pain started in my chest and spread from my lungs to my head. I made myself ignore it as best I could, and concentrated on swimming towards the glow of the lamp.
    I could sense other members of the crew blundering about in the water around me, and I tried to remember the lectures they had given us on underwater survival. The instinct not to breathe in water means that carbon dioxide builds up in the blood until it causes loss of consciousness. The average person can hold out for approximately ninety seconds before they pass out and take an involuntary gasp of water. Snorklers regularly hyperventilate before going under, taking lots of deep breaths to saturate the blood with oxygen. They can hold out for two minutes or more. Professional free divers can last underwater for as much as four-and-a-half minutes.
    In the end, though, physiology takes over. I could sense darkness closing in on me, a sign my brain was suffering from acute oxygen deprivation. Without fresh oxygen in the blood the heart begins to beat erratically and finally shuts down. Blood pools in the brain but you aren't dead yet. The brain can hold out a long while on residual oxygen. People have actually been pulled out from under ice fifty minutes after their hearts have shut down, and been revived without brain damage. The colder the water the longer you can live.
    They tell you these things to keep you from panicking. If you understand the risks you can assess them properly. Now I knew that as long as I could get through the hatch and not get dragged down to the sea bed by the weight of four tons of aircraft, I had a good chance of being picked up. So I tried to ignore the dark mist closing in on the edges of my consciousness and nailed on. And all the time I could feel the pressure in my ears growing, as the fuselage sank deeper and deeper.
    A minute is a long time when you're down in the darkness without air. And it must have been all of a minute before my hands first felt the edge of the hatchway. By now I was completely disoriented; I had no idea which way up the aircraft was. It might have been sinking on its back, or it might have tumbled in the water and now be plunging nose first.
    On my first attempt to pull myself through I got a kick in the face from someone else who had made it out and was striking out for the surface. Strangely this gave me confidence; if he could do it I could too. I was entering a strange, dreamy state of accepting what was happening to me. Somewhere in my head I knew this was another of the symptoms of oxygen deprivation, but it didn't seem important. I pulled myself through the hatch and saw a patch of light overhead. Now I remembered my life vest again. I gave the tag a pull and began to float upwards. I wasn't going to fight any more. I was simply going to let myself be drawn towards the light.
    I stopped with a jerk. Something was pulling me back, holding me down. I realised it was my leg; my left boot was caught in the slide of the door. Desperately I twisted and tugged, struggling to free myself, but my strength was ebbing away. I tried to work my