Rescue at sea raises questions about pilot

On this day in 1989: Lawyer Thomas Root blacks out while flying his Cessna 210 on a business trip from Washington to Rocky Mount. Tailed by 19 military planes for four hours, Root winds up ditching in the Atlantic Ocean near the Bahamas and is rescued, suffering from a mysterious gunshot wound in the abdomen. He speculates the .32-caliber handgun in the plane’s glove compartment may have gone off on impact, although Smith & Wesson says this is impossible.