How one pilot literally rode out a dangerous storm

© Shareen Strauss Lenticular clouds fill the sky over McCloud, California. When these lenticular clouds build up, it usually means a storm is brewing.

Almost all of us ride out many “storms” in our lives.

However, none of us have literally rode out a storm like 39-year-old Lieutenant Colonel William Rankin experienced in the summer of 1959.  

Rankin and another pilot in a nearby jet were making a routine flight above North Carolina. The two pilots were about to start their descent to the Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort, South Carolina when Rankin heard his engine abruptly grind, then completely stop.  

Rankin and his plane (with no running engine) were now 45,000 feet above the Earth and falling. Luckily, his plane had an emergency power supply that could at least temporarily get him back on track. He pulled the lever to start the back-up power and the lever broke off in his hand.

No power. His plane was falling.  

Typically, his plane would not be so high in the atmosphere, but the two planes climbed to get above some very mean-looking storms in their flight path. The storm clouds reached the upper limits of the troposphere and then flattened out at the top, creating anvil-shaped clouds.

This is a tell-tale sign that a storm has reached maximum strength. By traveling above the storms, the pilots would avoid dangerous travel conditions. Well, now Rankin’s plane was 1/2 mile above the storm but without an engine. The plane was falling.  

With no other option, Rankin pulled the eject level (at least that worked), and was propelled out of the cockpit into air that was 58 degrees below zero and had an atmospheric pressure so low his body immediately swelled up and blood started pouring from his eyes, ears and nose.

There is also very little oxygen up there, but he did have an emergency oxygen mask that would allow him to make it down to the 10,000-foot mark where his parachute could safely deploy. If it deployed any sooner, it would slow his trip to the ground and he could run out of oxygen before the oxygen thickened closer to Earth. He should free fall for 3 to 4 minutes before his parachute opened at 10,000 feet altitude.  

Rankin free fell into the top of the mature storm, and somehow his miserable conditions got even worse. He could no longer see anything around him as he got pelted with rain and large chunks of ice. The storm was so strong that the updrafts were sending the rain high enough into the cloud, turning them into ice. 

The ice fell but then blew back up and gained more ice. He was still falling and, for what seemed like a lot longer than four minutes, worried his parachute was not opening.  

Finally, he felt the jerk of his parachute pulling him from above as it opened. The problem was this: the storm messed with the barometer the parachute used to know when to open and it opened way too early. He was well above the safe 10,000-foot mark.

For the next 30 minutes, Rankin and his parachute were carried up and down by the storm’s strong up-and-down drafts. Each time he went up, he was carried into the hail-making zone and once again pelted with ice. Lightning was flashing all around him with simultaneous thunder that shook his body almost to the point of giving him a concussion.  

What seems almost impossible got worse. Several times he almost drowned up in the sky. The storm cloud held so much water that he was taking in more water than air when he breathed and it started to fill his lungs.  

Finally, the storm eased and Rankin fell to a survivable level. The winds died down and he glided closer to Earth. Of course, right before he landed, a gust of wind sent him and his parachute headfirst into the trunk of a tree but his helmet allowed him to survive. Forty minutes after ejecting from plane, he was now on the ground. His fall to Earth should have been almost 10 times shorter. 

The pilot, bleeding, bruised, half frozen and battered, flagged down a car that took him to the hospital, where he spent several weeks. Next time you see a storm cloud, you may never take it for granted again — William Rankin didn’t. 

Mike Szydlowski is a science teacher and zoo facilitator at Jefferson STEAM School.

TIME FOR A POP QUIZ

At what level of our atmosphere does all weather take place?

Based on this story, what does the temperature do as you travel higher in the troposphere? 

Air pressure is the force of air that is pressing down on you. Why is the air pressure lower as you travel higher into the atmosphere? 

How does hail form?

Rankin should have taken only 3 to 4 minutes to fall to about 10,000 feet altitude. Why did he stay in the air so long?

LAST WEEK'S QUIZ ANSWERS

Why do you think most smaller animals mate in the spring while most larger animals mate in the fall?

It takes longer for larger animal babies to develop so they need to start in the fall so that the animals have the entire next warm season to grow before the next winter.

What is the main reason some animals hibernate or go dormant in the winter? 

Because food is so scarce in the winter, it is best for some animals to go dormant so they do not require food.

When it comes to robins, which tasks are performed by the mother and which are performed by the father? Create a Venn diagram to show how the tasks are distributed.

Mother-only side: selecting a mate, incubating eggs

Middle (both): building a nest, feeding the young

Father-only side: finding a nest site, building a nest, teaching the young to fly away

The average weight of a newborn baby is about 7 pounds. If we were like caterpillars, how many pounds would we become before turning into an adult? 

7 pounds x 1000 = 7,000 pounds

With the climate warming, some plants are sprouting earlier every year. How could this be a problem to insects if they come out of their dormancy based on the length of daylight? 

The length of daylight does not change based on climate change. Therefore, if a plant starts growing earlier, the food parts of the plant may be done before the insects that eat that plant come out.

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: How one pilot literally rode out a dangerous storm