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[ShakyJake]

Okay, so I was digging a deep pit outside my fortress when I notice that one of my miners is listed as having "no job", despite the work still being done. I check up on him and find him suspended a full z-level above where the construction is currently going on. His tile is labeled "open space", so he's definitely not standing on anything. I'm guessing that while channeling the trench out, he must have been standing on a spot as another miner removed it, and got stuck there. I didn't think it would be such a huge problem, but even though I've built ramps and constructions back up to him and even a floor beneath his feet, he refuses to budge from that spot. Anyone ever had this problem before, and/or have any ideas on how to fix it? As cool as having a levitating dwarf might be outside my fort, I'm still rather anxious to get one of my precious miners back.

[Sphalerite]

Dwarves aren't supposed to channel out the ground under their own feet or those of another dwarf, but I have seen them do so on occasion anyway.

It sounds like you've found an instance of the stick in midair bug.  This was fairly common in 40d, and it appears it wasn't fixed for DF2010 after all.  Creatures can become stuck in midair, usually this happens if you save game while a creature is airborne.  In 40d there was no way to fix this in-game.  You can build ramps or floors under the flying creature, build walls where he's standing, cave-in the roof over him, flood the square with water or magma, even fire ballista bolts through his square, but nothing in the game will ever get him unstuck or affect him in any way.  The only way to fix this in 40d was to use Dwarf Companion to hack the game and turn off the 'projectile' flag for that creature.  I don't know if Dwarf Companion has been updated to the latest DF2010 version yet.

[Creamcorn]

Either way, it sounds like a good idea for experimentation.

[ShakyJake]

Thanks, Sphalerite, it appears that it happened exactly as you described. As nothing I was doing was working, I loaded the save and hoped it was before the incident, and his getting stuck in the air seems to have happened exactly during the save. Do dwarves stuck like this ever get thirsty or hungry? I suppose a miner isn't as irreplaceable as I first thought, but it'll take some investment in time to get another one up to his level. In the meanwhile, I suppose the reservoir I'm going to build up is just going to be haunted.

[Sphalerite]

Do dwarves stuck like this ever get thirsty or hungry?

As far as I can tell, creatures stuck airborne are in suspended animation.  They don't seem to get thirsty, hungry, tired, bleed, age, or change in emotional status.  I am not sure if nobles stuck airborne stop making mandates.  I deliberately put a few nobles in suspended animation in a 40d fortress and never saw a mandate from them, but I may simply not have run the fortress long enough.  I also haven't tested if a baby stuck airborne will grow into a child, or if a dwarf in a strange mood stuck airborne goes insane after a while.  Further science needs to be done.

[Hyndis]

A dwarf who channels out from under him will just fall down. If its just a 1 Z level fall he'll only be stunned for a moment but not injured. If its a longer fall he'll either be injured or die.

[askovdk]

Dwarves aren't supposed to channel out the ground under their own feet or those of another dwarf, but I have seen them do so on occasion anyway.

Just because I found out this trick yesterday:
To mine the block away under another dwarf (isolated on the top of a single tile) you can: designate the block as an up stair and designate an down stair above, channel the down stair away from above (this will make the upper dwarf fall, - but nothing dangerous), and finally designate the removal of the up stair.

[ShakyJake]

I took your tip and looked into Dwarf Companion, Sphalerite. It doesn't seem to be up to date, though, but a similar tool called "Runesmith" is, and when I ran it I was able to find my flying dwarf and uncheck his status from "projectile". If anyone ever has this problem, it was an easy fix using that.