Supersonic Survivor

[David Loera]

Man Survives Being Ejected from Jet at Mach 1
Provided by The Survivors Club

In the rarefied world of fighter pilots, Brian Udell is known as the Supersonic Survivor. He's the only airman ever to survive ejecting at sea level from a jet going faster than Mach 1, the speed of sound. Incredibly, Udell endured a sustained load of 45 g. Given his weight -- 195 pounds -- that means he faced g-forces of nearly 9,000 pounds, the equivalent of an RV trailer parked right on top of him.

On April 18, 1995, Udell was flying an F-15E tactical jet fighter off the coast of North Carolina on a routine training exercise. An experienced pilot who has flown more than one hundred combat missions, Udell also served as an F-15E instructor. Almost instantly, he sensed something wasn't right with his plane and it was heading straight toward the ocean.

The entire drama -- from that simple right turn to a life-or-death situation -- had taken only five or ten seconds, fewer than it takes to read this sentence. At 10,000 feet, Udell's jet shattered the Mach 1 barrier of 769 miles per hour. Udell realized it was too late to save the plane.

"Bail out! Bail out! Bail out!" he commanded.



Udell watched the cockpit canopy slide back. He saw a white flash of light and an enormous wind blast. And then there was only darkness.

Udell's parachute opened just five hundred feet over the water. He quickly realized his helmet and mask had been ripped off by the windblast. In the hospital, he would learn that all of the blood vessels in his face had exploded, his lips swelled up like hot dogs, and his head inflated to the size of a watermelon.

The life preserver around his neck was no use -- it had been sliced into ribbons during the ejection. His gloves and watch were gone, too. A one-man life raft was supposed to be hanging at the end of a fifteen-foot cord attached to his right hip, and he prayed that it hadn't been shredded.

One moment he was dry. The next, he was ten feet under water. Udell felt the salt burn his wounds, and he struggled to the surface. Now he was alone some sixty-five miles off the North Carolina coast in five-foot seas without a life vest.

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