What I've always found odd about that story is that ejection seats from Martin-Baker's earlier era didn't deploy the main parachute until the seat had fallen to below either 10,000 ft . (Or 15,000 ft because different barometric units could be fitted to the seat to match the terrain you were flying over). Most ejection seat designs - and certainly all Martin-Baker's - incorporate a drogue chute which deploys quite quickly after ejection to stabilise the seat in an upright attitude. This drogue chute will not deploy the main chute until the barostat has reached its assigned altitude. This means the pilot would be falling at a bit less than terminal velocity but fast enough to get him to an altitude where he can breath. Until reaching that altitude an emergency oxygen bottle, also attached to the seat, will deliver oxygen in the descent. Once the barostat triggers at it's calibrated altitude the remaining parachute deployment sequence can then continue. This involves the release of the main chute, which is extracted by the drogue, whilst the main seat harness is released such that the crewman falls away from his seat in his main chute but still attached to his parachute. All of his other survival equipment is contained in the seat pan which also comes away from the seat and is dangling beneath him.
The oxygen bottle is normally attached to the seat so this disappears too but only below 10,000 ft (or 15,000 ft) which isn't a problem. The US Navy's seats made by Martin-Baker actually have their emergency oxygen bottles in the seat pan, so this stays with the crewmembers. This was a USN specification to give the crewmen breathing oxygen in case they went under water following an accident off a ship. We poor Brits didn't have such luxuries provided by our caring employers. In fact I think only the USN had this feature fitted to their MB seats. (Yeah Fly Navy etc etc). I don't know what year they started specifying this feature though. When I looked into this story after first hearing about it many years ago I couldn't find a reason why his parachute deployed. Maybe the main chute didn't but the strength of the thunderstorm still kept him, his seat and the drogue chute airborne, as described. Maybe if his main chute had inadvertently deployed early at those altitude it would have been destroyed, leading to his death. I read that the early F8s had a seat provided by Vaught which was fairly basic but it's hard to find more details on those seats. They were soon replaced by Martin-Baker Mark 5 seats which were superior in performance. The USN has remained the biggest customer of Martin-Baker seats ever since. (Not the USAF though). I'm not being a biased Brit by claiming any superior performance of MB seats. The French and Israelis also used MB seats because of their reliability and generally superior performance to alternative manufacturers. These seats could be quite uncomfortable, even on short flights, but crew tend to be quite fond of them. There are several euphemisms for ejecting, including "banging out" (Brit) and punching out" (USA). My favourite came from a French exchange pilot who referred to it as "saving the furniture". (Or, more precisely, "sauver les meubles", usually mentioned with a characteristic Gallic shrug). Simon ________________________________ From: Jack Keady via Mifnet <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, January 3, 2026 23:37 To: David Wardell via Mifnet <[email protected]> Cc: Jack Keady <[email protected]> Subject: [Mifnet ๐ฐ 75022] weird ejection story keady Old Photo Club<https://www.facebook.com/Oldphotosclub?__cft__[0]=AZZIaIc5baLXGWKF_6P_isWNHKf0inSTQiovZ0-YV01hiJsOB1V3FONAfoVvKsIFZ8_hxsWAnwwoT9DeWAdhUdLMOcpjG7-RjfNbj9M85HGfOKsV2wcxCAHOmrIwQpP4bPiMXGLcq4rXcCGN0RiNP-b6hDf7VXyVDQpaClZqtjm1hQ0nUixa4Bi-S8sn277tPFGYmRWw9Z5lLiHq3VhbAz2g&__tn__=-UC%2CP-R> [https://s.yimg.com/nq/storm/assets/enhancrV2/23/logos/facebook.png]<https://www.facebook.com/Oldphotosclub?__cft__[0]=AZZIaIc5baLXGWKF_6P_isWNHKf0inSTQiovZ0-YV01hiJsOB1V3FONAfoVvKsIFZ8_hxsWAnwwoT9DeWAdhUdLMOcpjG7-RjfNbj9M85HGfOKsV2wcxCAHOmrIwQpP4bPiMXGLcq4rXcCGN0RiNP-b6hDf7VXyVDQpaClZqtjm1hQ0nUixa4Bi-S8sn277tPFGYmRWw9Z5lLiHq3VhbAz2g&__tn__=-UC%2CP-R> Log in or sign up to view<https://www.facebook.com/Oldphotosclub?__cft__[0]=AZZIaIc5baLXGWKF_6P_isWNHKf0inSTQiovZ0-YV01hiJsOB1V3FONAfoVvKsIFZ8_hxsWAnwwoT9DeWAdhUdLMOcpjG7-RjfNbj9M85HGfOKsV2wcxCAHOmrIwQpP4bPiMXGLcq4rXcCGN0RiNP-b6hDf7VXyVDQpaClZqtjm1hQ0nUixa4Bi-S8sn277tPFGYmRWw9Z5lLiHq3VhbAz2g&__tn__=-UC%2CP-R> See posts, photos and more on Facebook.<https://www.facebook.com/Oldphotosclub?__cft__[0]=AZZIaIc5baLXGWKF_6P_isWNHKf0inSTQiovZ0-YV01hiJsOB1V3FONAfoVvKsIFZ8_hxsWAnwwoT9DeWAdhUdLMOcpjG7-RjfNbj9M85HGfOKsV2wcxCAHOmrIwQpP4bPiMXGLcq4rXcCGN0RiNP-b6hDf7VXyVDQpaClZqtjm1hQ0nUixa4Bi-S8sn277tPFGYmRWw9Z5lLiHq3VhbAz2g&__tn__=-UC%2CP-R> ยทFollow January 1 at 4:19โฏ AM<https://www.facebook.com/Oldphotosclub/posts/pfbid02necqB8EPyZ1zF5Jje6Xd7Dr9SytF7KxPNgQtfdpiihB3VtEuvrprn7q4KzCJLzbbl?__cft__[0]=AZZIaIc5baLXGWKF_6P_isWNHKf0inSTQiovZ0-YV01hiJsOB1V3FONAfoVvKsIFZ8_hxsWAnwwoT9DeWAdhUdLMOcpjG7-RjfNbj9M85HGfOKsV2wcxCAHOmrIwQpP4bPiMXGLcq4rXcCGN0RiNP-b6hDf7VXyVDQpaClZqtjm1hQ0nUixa4Bi-S8sn277tPFGYmRWw9Z5lLiHq3VhbAz2g&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R> ยท His engine exploded nine miles above the Earth. What happened next was worse than falling. On July 26, 1959, Lieutenant Colonel William Rankin was flying his F-8 Crusader jet fighter over the southeastern United States when his engine failed without warning. He was cruising at 47,000 feet. That is nine miles above the ground. Higher than Mount Everest. So high that the sky turns black and the air is too thin to sustain human life. At that altitude, the temperature outside his cockpit was seventy degrees below zero. Rankin had only seconds to make a decision. He could try to glide the crippled jet down to a safer altitude before ejecting, or he could pull the ejection handle immediately and take his chances. Smoke filled the cockpit. The controls went dead. He pulled the handle. The ejection seat rocketed him into the freezing void. The sudden decompression hit his body like a sledgehammer. At that altitude, the pressure is so low that fluids inside the human body begin to expand and vaporize. Pain exploded through his abdomen and his eyes. His emergency oxygen supply failed. He began losing consciousness almost immediately. Then his parachute deployed. And that is when his nightmare truly began. William Rankin had ejected directly into the heart of a cumulonimbus thunderstorm. From the outside, these storms look like towering white mountains in the sky. Pilots avoid them at all costs because inside, they are vertical hurricanes. Updrafts can exceed one hundred fifty miles per hour. The violence inside is almost beyond description. Rankin fell straight into one. Instead of descending toward Earth, he was caught. Powerful updrafts seized his parachute and hurled him back upward. Then he was thrown sideways. Then yanked upward again. He was no longer falling. He was trapped, spinning inside a living storm that refused to let him go. Hailstones the size of golf balls hammered his body from every direction. Lightning cracked so close that he could feel the static electricity lifting the hair on his arms and smell the sharp burn of ozone in the air. Thunder was no longer just sound. It was a physical force that slammed into his chest like a fist. Rain flooded into his parachute, collapsing it and sending him into freefall. Then the canopy would reinflate and jerk him violently upward again. The motion was so brutal that he vomited. He lost consciousness. He woke up still spinning, still trapped, still being torn apart by forces no human was meant to survive. The temperature swung wildly. At the top of the updrafts, far below freezing, ice formed on his flight suit, his exposed skin, his eyelashes. Then he would plunge into warmer air and the ice would begin melting, only to refreeze seconds later when he was hurled back up. The rain was so heavy it felt like drowning in midair. He gasped for breath and inhaled water. His lungs burned. His body was bruised and bleeding from hail impacts. He was hypothermic and frostbitten at the same time. Time stopped. Minutes stretched into what felt like hours. He later said he believed he was going to die inside that cloud, spinning forever, never reaching the ground. And then, after forty minutes of impossible violence, the storm finally released him. He broke through the bottom of the thundercloud at about ten thousand feet. For the first time since he ejected, he was falling normally. He could see trees below. He was descending toward a forest in North Carolina. Rankin crashed through the tree canopy. Branches snapped around him. His parachute tangled in the limbs, slowing his fall just enough. He slammed into the earth, badly injured but somehow still breathing. For several minutes he lay motionless on the forest floor, unable to believe he was alive. Then he stood up. He freed himself from his parachute. He began walking. His body was covered in welts from hailstones. He had frostbite on his hands and face. He was bruised from head to toe, bleeding from multiple wounds, disoriented from oxygen deprivation and trauma. But he was alive. He stumbled through the woods until he found a road. Then a farmhouse. A shocked farmer opened his door to find a battered pilot in a torn flight suit standing on his porch. William Rankin looked at him and said simply: "I just fell out of the sky." When military doctors and meteorologists heard his story, they were stunned. No one had ever survived being trapped inside a violent thunderstorm at that altitude. The conditions he described should not have been survivable. Decompression sickness should have killed him. The hailstones could have knocked him unconscious permanently. The extreme cold should have caused fatal hypothermia. Lightning could have struck him directly at any moment. But everything that should have killed William Rankin somehow did not. He spent weeks recovering from his injuries. Doctors documented severe bruising, frostbite, minor burns from lightning proximity, and internal damage from the violent forces that had thrown him through the sky. In 1960, he published a book about his experience called The Man Who Rode the Thunder. It remains the only firsthand account of surviving such conditions. His testimony helped meteorologists better understand the internal dynamics of severe thunderstorms. Aviation safety protocols were updated. Ejection seat designs improved. High-altitude survival training incorporated lessons from what he endured. William Rankin continued his military career after recovering. He flew more missions. He never ejected from another aircraft. When asked about those forty minutes inside the storm, he said it was the longest forty minutes of his life. Time had stopped. He had been suspended between Earth and space, caught in a force so violent it seemed impossible to escape. But he did escape. Through training, physical resilience, and a measure of luck that defies explanation. He retired from the Marine Corps and lived a quiet life, rarely speaking publicly about what happened. He passed away in 2009 at the age of eighty-nine. More than sixty years after his ordeal, meteorologists still reference his account when studying severe thunderstorms. Pilots still learn about him in survival training. His story appears in aviation safety manuals and meteorology textbooks around the world. Because William Rankin proved something that science said was impossible. The human body can endure conditions that should be unsurvivable. When every system fails, when nature unleashes its full fury, when death seems absolutely certain, survival is still possible. He fell nine miles through a storm that tried to destroy him. And he walked away. #WilliamRankin<https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/williamrankin?__eep__=6&__cft__[0]=AZZIaIc5baLXGWKF_6P_isWNHKf0inSTQiovZ0-YV01hiJsOB1V3FONAfoVvKsIFZ8_hxsWAnwwoT9DeWAdhUdLMOcpjG7-RjfNbj9M85HGfOKsV2wcxCAHOmrIwQpP4bPiMXGLcq4rXcCGN0RiNP-b6hDf7VXyVDQpaClZqtjm1hQ0nUixa4Bi-S8sn277tPFGYmRWw9Z5lLiHq3VhbAz2g&__tn__=*NK-R> #TheManWhoRodeTheThunder<https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/themanwhorodethethunder?__eep__=6&__cft__[0]=AZZIaIc5baLXGWKF_6P_isWNHKf0inSTQiovZ0-YV01hiJsOB1V3FONAfoVvKsIFZ8_hxsWAnwwoT9DeWAdhUdLMOcpjG7-RjfNbj9M85HGfOKsV2wcxCAHOmrIwQpP4bPiMXGLcq4rXcCGN0RiNP-b6hDf7VXyVDQpaClZqtjm1hQ0nUixa4Bi-S8sn277tPFGYmRWw9Z5lLiHq3VhbAz2g&__tn__=*NK-R> ~Old Photo Club
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