Hello to all. I am the instuctor on the flight. First off let me just say that the female pilot of this plane did a great job. Not only with the emergency, but also the flight leading up to it and the days after.
It seems that a lot of the information on this forum are assumptions or misinformation. There are two points that bother me most. The debate about the glide, and the fuel issue. I will address them both
The airplane lost power 22 nm offshore (30 nm from the airport) @7000 feet. Anyone who has time in a piper cherokee should know that this is not a realist glide. A water landing was inevitable. We were able to glide within 11 nm of the airport, which I believe is quite respectable.
As for fuel. The Piper burns 8.8 gph at 65% power. At 9000ft (our altitude for this flight), the aiplane is not able tho produce 75% as some have suggested. I have flown this airplanes for many years, and understand that most pilots dont know how to properly set power and lean the mixture. I assure you I am not one of them. With our calculated burn, we should have reached our destination with one hour of fuel to spare. Also no indications in the cockpit, or during restart (switching tanks) indicates fuel starvation.
I hope this clears up some points. For those of us in the airplane, the cause seems obvious, and we are just glad to be here to tell the story.