Possibly THE Most Extreme Flying Experience ...

[Calilasseia]

I've just been watching a Youtube video, featuring an air accident episode that fortunately, didn't result in massive casualties. However, this is possibly the most extreme instance of "if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger". On that basis, this guy is as invincible as a black hole. And you'll soon fund out why.

A BAC 111 airliner took off from Heathrow on what should have been a routine flight carrying holidaymakers to Malaga in Spain in 1990. British Airways Flight 5390 was to enter the history books as possibly the most extreme flying experience anyone can have, short of ejecting from a re-entering Space Shuttle.

At 17,000 feet, one of the cockpit windows blew out. The captain of the aircraft ended up half out of the cockpit, saved from certain death at that moment only by the fact that his feet became jammed under the control yoke as explosive decompression propelled him out of the window. He was now stuck, half in, half out of the cockpit, facing an outside air temperature of -17°C, wind chill from an airflow travelling past his body at half the speed of sound, and the imminent danger of death from hypoxia even before the cold killed him.

In what was a fortuitous development, his feet jamming under the control yoke not only saved him from being blasted completely out of the airliner, but put the plane into a dive. The co-pilot wrestled for control of the aircraft, whilst flight attendants struggled to keep the captain from exiting the aircraft completely.

The co-pilot managed, with the help of the flight attendants holding the captain in the cockpit and freeing his feet from the control yoke, to regain control of the aircraft, and perform an emergency landing at Southampton regional airport. Thirteen minutes had elapsed between the cockpit window blowout and touchdown.

Given the ferocious stresses that the captain's body had undergone, as a result of being half outside the aeroplane at 17,000 feet, spending 13 minutes in this precarious position, one might reasonably assume that the captain was well and truly dead when the airliner finally touched down. The most remarkable part of this incident .. he lived. He actually managed to show signs of consciousness to a no doubt utterly stunned ambulance crew, who thought they were transporting him to the morgue.

Full story contained in this video:

[Tero]

It was a Miracle! God was testing them!

[Cormac]

It was a Miracle! God was testing them!

And they failed the test! They should have accepted God's will with humble grace, sat back, said a few prayers, and expired. They'd all have been in heaven that night, but NO!

God punished them all by denying them entry to heaven on that occasion.

[Cormac]

It was a Miracle! God was testing them!

And they failed the test! They should have accepted God's will with humble grace, sat back, said a few prayers, and expired. They'd all have been in heaven that night, but NO!

God punished them all by denying them entry to heaven on that occasion.

[JimC]

Flying is not for me...

[Cormac]

Flying is not for me...

In general, it is probably safer than sitting in your chair!

[FBM]

Flying is not for me...

In general, it is probably safer than sitting in your chair!

Yeah. I've fallen out of a chair before, though...more than once. I don't think the odds are good for surviving two plane crashes...

[JimC]

Flying is not for me...

In general, it is probably safer than sitting in your chair!

True, but it is an area where I am irrational...

[klr]

Wasn't there a US fighter pilot in the Korean War who fell to earth when his parachute failed, yet still survived? IIRC, he resumed operations despite a broken neck, which went undiagnosed for some time.

[Cormac]

Flying is not for me...

In general, it is probably safer than sitting in your chair!

Yeah. I've fallen out of a chair before, though...more than once. I don't think the odds are good for surviving two plane crashes...

I am (nearly) willing to bet that all cause mortality is higher sitting in a chair than sitting on a plane. How is that for abuse of statistics.

[Cormac]

Double post

[macdoc]

I really enjoyed seeing that episode on one of the science channels a while back.
A tiny difference in thread diameter was the cause and has led to new procedures.

More people are killed by donkeys worldwide than airlines.

[Calilasseia]

Wasn't there a US fighter pilot in the Korean War who fell to earth when his parachute failed, yet still survived? IIRC, he resumed operations despite a broken neck, which went undiagnosed for some time.

There's one documented instance of a Lancaster tail gunner falling 19,000 feet without a parachute and surviving the ordeal. Partly because he had the good fortune to land in 12 feet of soft Alpine snow.

Correction, it was 18,000 feet. This is the individual in question. Apparently, when the Germans who captured him checked the facts, they were so impressed, they gave him a certificate acknowledging his survival.

[Clinton Huxley]

Some WW1 fighter pilots had hairy moments, dangling from a plane flying upside down, for example

[Calilasseia]

Then there's this woman, who is in the Guinness Book of Records as having survived the longest fall to Earth without a parachute - over 33,000 feet.