He asked Treasury Secretary Paulson to call the Russian authorities to let him fly his private jet over their airspace to return to the US and face the expanding crisis.
At 13:00 GMT Spiller said he was feeling better after being allowed to make a phone call to his girlfriend, but just over an hour later a prison officer looked in on him and saw him hanging.
Armed with his cell phone number, they circled the skies over the New York area, intercepting a call to Emirates Airlines reservations, before scrambling to catch him at John F.