A Disintegrating Plane!

What would you do if you were a pilot and your plane literally disintegrated from around you? That's what happened to Bill Weaver, a test pilot for Lockheed back in 1966. I came across his story one day last year, and it's so incredibly interesting! I strongly encourage you guys to read his actual account, you can check that out here: http://roadrunnersinternationale.com/weaver_sr71_bailout.html

In January of 1966, Weaver was test flying a plane with his co-pilot, Jim Zwayer. He was in a SR-71 Blackbird, doing a test of how the plane operated with a high-Mach cruise performance. However, the alterations on the plane that were being tested led to a less stable structure. This was evidenced when, several minutes into the flight, the plane started to shake violently. At this point, they were flying at 3.2 Mach, and around 78,000 ft. The G-forces knocked Weaver unconscious and the next thing he knew, he was falling in the air. He figured he was awake, therefore had to be alive. Because of the high altitude and the potential issues with pressure, he was wearing a suit that automatically pressurized and kept him safe, but his helmet visor had iced over, so he couldn't see how high up he was. His parachutes had thankfully autodeployed, and once he got his visor opened, he could see the ground below and Zwayer's parachute not too far away also coming to the ground. When Weaver reached the ground, he assumed that he would have to just spend the night, since he was in the middle of nowhere, with no way to get help. But all of a sudden, he heard a voice! A man with a cowboy hat was walking up, and had a helicopter in the background! He lived a few miles away, and had seen the mishap in the air, so took his helicopter to where Weaver had landed. At this point in his story, Weaver notes that if he had told his launch site that he was going to be stranded in the desert at a certain time, they wouldn't have been able to make it as fast at that helicopter pilot did. The pilot went off in search of Jim, but he had unfortunately broken his neck and died immediately after being ejected from the plane. Weaver also realized that amazingly, he still had his seatbelt attached to him. This meant that he wasn't actually ejected from his seat, but that the seat literally disintegrated around him, leaving the nylon straps still attached! He miraculously survived the flight with only a few bruises, and one heck of a story. Two weeks later, he was back in the air flying planes!