That time a pilot survived an
ejection at Mach 3
Posted On March 02, 2021 18:41:00
Supersonic ejections are
dangerous — and the faster the flight the worse it is.
They’re so dangerous that
pilots are trained to ride out a failing plane for as long as possible,
lowering their speed and altitude to more manageable levels before pulling the
ejection handle.
That’s what makes Bill Weaver’s
story so insane. He was a test pilot in the SR-71 Blackbird. During a Mach 3
flight, his right engine suddenly died. The enormous thrust from the left
engine put the plane into an uncontrollable spin. It began to
literally disintegrate around him and the flight test specialist riding with
him.
Weaver passed out. He and Jim
Zwayer, the flight test specialist, continued to fly through the air, propelled
by their own inertia at hundreds of miles an hour. Weaver passed out before the
plane even broke apart.
When he woke up, he was flying
through the sky high above the earth. Initially, he thought he was dreaming,
then he realized that it wasn’t a dream so he must be dead. And finally
realized that he was neither dead nor dreaming.
A layer of ice covered his
visor, but he could tell he wasn’t tumbling so the stabilization chute must
have deployed. His emergency oxygen tank had functioned as well, inflating his
suit to compress his blood and feed him breathable air.
The compressed suit pilots wear
in the SR-71 helps them resist g-forces and keeps their blood from boiling in
such high altitude flight. It also acted as a personal escape capsule for Bill
Weaver. (Photo: U.S. Air Force Brian Shul)
As Weaver reached for his main
chute, it deployed on its own. He got his frozen face plate open and was able
to spot Zwayer who he would later learn had died.
He landed a few miles from the
wreckage of his burnt up plane and collapsed his chute, preparing for a long
night in the freezing winter weather of the desert. Then he heard a voice
asking, “Can I help you?”
Turns out, Weaver had landed on
a large ranch, and the owner had flown his helicopter to go check out the
wreckage that had just crashed on his land.
If this thing broke apart in
your backyard, you would go check on it, too. (U.S. Air Force photo)
Weaver later learned that the
straps from his seat were still fully attached to him, but the ejection seat had stayed with the plane.
When the plane broke apart, the entire cockpit, including Weaver’s seat, had
broken up around him as his seat belt and harness continued to hold on to him.
The thing that saved him was
the pressurized suit which had acted like a tiny escape capsule. An inspection
of that suit revealed that one of the oxygen canisters had broken off, nearly
removing what little protection Weaver had during his flight through the air at
multiple times the speed of sound.
Weaver placed a collect call to
Lockheed, letting the crew in the control area know that he had survived and
surprising many of them. Weaver got behind the controls of another SR-71 only
two weeks later.
You can see a video about the
incident below, and read more of Weaver’s story in his own words at Road Runners International.
Video of this event:
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