[michael_fine]

In a story of insane luck (and unluck!), the craziest part is definitely this

" He said that if I had had a spleen, it almost certainly would have ruptured when I hit the water, and I would have bled to death. Of the 25 pilots in our squadron, I am the only one without a spleen. It gives me something to think about. Maybe it does you as well."

[Diesel555]

I thought the craziest part was where in this sequence of events does the pilot say

> “This is very serious,” I thought.

It's just after

> "The main, 24-foot parachute was just flapping in the breeze and was tangled in its own shroud lines. It hadn’t opened! I could see the white folds neatly arranged, fluttering feebly in the air.

So... after the flame-out, after the fire, after the lack of radios, after the failed ejection, after the canopy manual ejection, after jumping out of the plane, after not hitting the tail, then after pulling his parachute and it doesn't open does he finally think - man this is serious.

[dctoedt]

>> “This is very serious,” I thought.

That's typical of military pilots — their ethos is to present a calm, unruffled mien to the world. Phrases such as, "I was a bit concerned" would translate as "I was this close to sh*tting my pants from terror" in normal human-speak.

(Source: Dad and sister were military pilots, plus my own service aboard an aircraft carrier.)

There's a great and probably-apocryphal story in Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff where a rookie Navy fighter pilot is part of a dog fight with North Korean (probably Russian-piloted) MIGs; the rookie is shouting excitedly into the radio, "He's on my six! He's on my six!" Another American Navy pilot responds, "Shut up and die like an aviator" — as in, naval aviator.

[tomcam]

Damn check out /u/dctoedt's profile. It's not just his father who's sickeningly accomplished. https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dctoedt

[dctoedt]

Thanks, but it's mostly that I've been around a while and am still on this side of the grass (spelled O L D).

[hinkley]

"Houston, we have a problem."

The other pilot is not wrong. If I can't already see that there's a MiG on your tail, what on earth am I gonna do about it? Least of all because in that era would I even know which direction you are from me at that moment, if I wasn't your wingman? Meanwhile you're screaming over everybody else's wingman.

[hinkley]

> after the flame-out, after the fire, after the lack of radios, after the failed ejection, after the canopy manual ejection, after jumping out of the plane, after not hitting the tail, then after pulling his parachute and it doesn't open does he finally think - man this is serious.

If you're a theist, you might be forgiven for thinking that someone was trying really hard to get your attention, after a day like that.

[CoastalCoder]

Yeah, your maintenance crew!

(Just kidding. Not sure about that pilot, but the book's author, Ron Knott, has written a number of Christian books. Wouldn't surprise me if that's related to why the book included that story.)

[hinkley]

Hah!

Yeah after that I might ask for a transfer and also vow to never again to sleep with a maintenance chief’s wife.

[m463]

I think it takes "processing" to realize the gravity of a situation.

A lot of things have happened in my life where all I think at the moment is "that's funny..." or "hmmm"

:)

[bitexploder]

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has taught my brain how to keep my body moving even when fight/flight is in full effect. You can understand things are going to hell and lessen the effects of the hormones. There are situations where you literally feel like you have to shit your pants in BJJ. Knees on the chest, chest compression moves, etc. it hits the CNS hard. You learn to be calm and work through it. Panic means you will actually shit your pants or lose the position / match. You effectively learn to operate in the worst situations. It all comes down to training really, and pilots have a ton of it for just this reason (operating in unexpected and bad situations).

[smeej]

Up until then, there were backup plans and options. There was something left to try.

[dxbydt]

aesop #1 - king spots an ant drowning in the pond. king uses a leaf to rescue ant. courtiers admonish king for wasting his busy schedule on trivia like ants. at night the king sleeps & the snake opens his fangs to strike the king's leg. the ant bites the king's toe & king moves his leg in the nick of time. the next morning the king admonishes his courtiers - if not for the ant i wouldn't be alive.

aesop #2 - man falls off horse and breaks leg. pretty damsel unwilling to wed man because he is lame. everyone says, you are so unlucky. lost your leg. lost your lady. now what ? king announces war and all the able men of the village are drafted. our man stays home because he is lame. the able soldiers are killed off by the enemy. pretty damsel marries sole surviving lame man.

many more where that came from :)

[TrueSlacker0]

Sorta reminds me of the Zen Koan "Is That So"

"The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbours as one living a pure life.

A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child.

This made her parents angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.

In great anger the parent went to the master. “Is that so?” was all he would say.

After the child was born it was brought to Hakuin. By this time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, but he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his neighbors and everything else he needed.

A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth – the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fish market.

The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back.

Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: “Is that so?”"

[sverhagen]

So, whether it's unluck or foul play involved, are we supposed to be grateful for the survival, or grumpy about the occurrence in the first place. Then, apply logic to the deities in your life.

[Maursault]

You've reminded me of the story of the Zen master and the little boy from Charlie Wilson's War.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2cjVhUrmII&t=0m38s

[acidburnNSA]

I was taught this by a Chinese culture coach. She said it more like:

Man's horse runs away: aww Horse returns, brings new wild horse: yay new horse Son riding wild horse breaks leg: aww War comes and takes able-bodied men: yay get to live

[nneonneo]

This story gives rise to the idiom “塞翁失马，焉知非福” - the old man lost his horse, but it turned out to be a blessing.

[throw827474737]

Wow.. so much bad luck (the original failure, ejection failure, parachute failure) countered by that much luck (not hitting the plane during "manual" eject, not bleeding to death because havin his spleen removed 4 years earlier) ..amazing unbelievable story with some good end :)

[cdelsolar]

i didn't understand something. he said impact with the plane tail will usually kill someone during a manual eject, but why? the plane and the person are going at the same speed at first?

[bbojan]

The airplane is dense and very aerodynamic. We would say it has a high ballistic coefficient [1].

The pilot is light would leave the cockpit flat or even bent over, which is a very non-aerodynamic shape. His ballistic coefficient would be low. He would decelerate quickly, and the tail would catch up with him and slam him from behind.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_coefficient

[Guest9081239812]

Imagine pushing a balloon out of your car window while driving on the highway and taking your foot off the accelerator. It doesn't float outside the window beside you, but it comes to a stop almost in an instant.

[quickthrower2]

Go into neutral would be better comparison but the same thing would happen.

[suzzer99]

Until the air catches the person and slows them down much faster than the aerodynamic and much heavier (attached to the plane) tail fin.

[tunesmith]

It's why it was pretty brilliant that he skewed the plane.

[elteto]

"Rolled" :)

[tgarv]

Sounds more like a combination of pitch and yaw: "I trimmed the aircraft to fly in a kind of sidelong skid: nose high and with the tail swung around slightly to the right"

[elteto]

That makes sense, it not only gets the tail out of the way but also pushes it down, making it much more unlikely to hit it as he gets sucked out.

[Diesel555]

He skidded the airplane. He applied rudder trim so that the tail was not directly behind the aircraft. He also mentions trying to be nose high.

What this would look like I think. Slow down to increase angle of attack in level flight. The nose is now high (likely already occurred after flameout and ejection attempts without thinking about it - check). Go full deflection rudder trim to skid the aircraft. Now trim the ailerons and elevators to fly level based on drag and adverse yaw. Get out.

[csallen]

As someone who doesn't fly planes, it's almost impossible to understand this comment or the author's original passage lol

[fastball]

Isn't this just (literal) survivorship bias?

If he'd had a spleen there would be no story to tell. People have fallen that distance and not lived (possibly because they had spleens).