and I was concerned about getting gas to the engines so we could get out of there.

I quickly went up to the top, like going up to the attic, the spot where the wings come together. You have to crawl there. The co-pilot was with me and we took whatever gas was in one of the tanks and transferred it over to the engines we could still keep going. I was up there long enough and realized the co-pilot had left me.

When I came down, I went to the pilot's compartment, and he was there and the other guy sitting down there was the radio operator, Don Miller. I could see the pilot was trying to get the plane stable. By that time, the guys in the backXconomy is a journalism startup with a look and feel that's part trade pub, part community blog and part old-fashioned news wire.

Focused on coverage of high-tech innovation, the site was launched in Boston in 2007 and has added editions and staff in Seattle and San Diego. All three cities are natural targets for a niche full of venture capital, angel funds and reinvention of the world as we know it.

Buderi, a former technology editor at BusinessWeek and former editor in chief of MIT's Technology Review, described Detroit's situation as "an American story that will play out as a story of challenge and innovation -- a city that's down but not giving up."

For Xconomy, what closed the gap between a nice idea and Tuesday's Detroit launch, according to Buderi,