It was the longest 10 seconds of Michael Cho’s life.

In July of 2012, Cho was researching an investment opportunity in a South Korean aircraft company that designed and built a special kind of seaplane. Wanting to know what he was financially backing, Cho took a test flight on the aircraft, along with a pilot and two other business associates.

As the flight was winding down, the pilot attempted to show the seaplane’s wing-in-ground capability, which lets an aircraft fly close to the ground or the water’s surface to reduce drag. The plane hit the water, couldn’t remain airborne, and sank.

“[T]he next thing I knew I was already drowning,” Cho wrote in a blog entry the day after the crash. “It all happened so quickly, probably over a period of 10 seconds.”

Cho began to get his bearings as the plane’s cabin filled with water. He unbuckled his seatbelt and searched for a way to escape.

“I still wasn’t sure if I was going to live because I knew I was still stuck in the cabin and if the water had filled up the entire cabin, I’d still die from drowning in this enclosed space of water (I was almost blacking out at this point). And then the miracle happened! Turns out there was about 15-20 cm of air space trapped towards the roof of the cabin. As I took in my first breath of air, I told myself that I must live to see another day.”

Eventually, Cho was able to exit the craft by swimming through the submerged doorway of the plane.

“When I came out from the other side, I saw, to my greatest relief, sunlight beaming against the body of the plane that was now capsized and I thought to myself, ‘Yes, I’m going to live! Yes, I’m going to live’!” he wrote in his blog.

The pilot died in the crash, but Cho and the other two passengers survived. On Wednesday, Cho held an Ask Me Anything to talk about the crash, how he survived it, and how the accident has affected his life.

How Was the Crash a Positive Experience?

How Did It Feel Being Trapped in the Cabin?

Does He Suffer From PTSD?

Did He Eventually Invest in the Company?

Check out Michael Cho’s entire Ask Me Anything for more about how the crash changed his life.