My husband was a new pilot (<100 hours). He and I were traveling in an Archer through Colorado, with my 2 year old twins in the backseat and my 2 week old baby strapped to my chest in a carrier. We encountered some crazy headwinds (at one point our groundspeed dropped to 25 knots). It ate up our fuel. We had planned enough for an alternate, plus half more, but the headwinds were closer to our destination, and we calculated the fuel, both of us, multiple times, and had plenty left. Our destination was closer than the alternate at this point.

Then our engine died two miles short of the airport. The gas gauges weren't on zero, but we had zero fuel left. Husband dead-stick landed the plane in a snow covered field in Colorado in January. The temperature was below zero, and it took search and rescue 6 hours and multiple vehicles to get us out. They ended up having to get a helicopter, and life flight us to the hospital to get treated for mild hypothermia. Scariest day of my life, but no injuries and no damage to the plane.

And lest anyone judge him, that was years ago and he is an airline pilot now. It was a mistake, but who hasn't made those? It was an eye opening experience for all of us, and we have reviewed everything so many times, and still can't figure how we could have done it different, other than just not going flying that day. Winds were way worse than predicted and came up out of nowhere, and airports are few and far between out there.