Bone Crusher

The supersonic delta-wing B58 Hustler, loping along at 650 m.p.h. 32,000 ft. over Texas, began a sharp turn to the southeast. Suddenly the four-jet bomber strained, trembled. "The first thing I noticed," said Captain Daniel Holland, the defensive-systems operator, "was that we were pulling Gs. which indicated to me that we were achieving an unusual attitude . . . I called Smitty [Major Richard Smith, 40, the pilot] and said: 'What's the matter? What's going on?' The answer wasn't immediate, so I figured he was fighting the controls. Next thing I knew, he was saying. 'I can't control it. Let's bail.' "

Added the navigator, Lieut. Colonel George Gradel: "Everything felt wrong. The aircraft had gone into a dive. Once that happened, it happened fast. Then I heard a voice which just said, 'Bail out.' "

Ejection came fast. First out was Holland. Strapped in his seat, he hit the air like a bullet splattering against a steel wall. The blasting air stream broke his right arm, fractured his pelvis, pulled apart the ligaments of his left leg, belted his face and body into a raw, black and blue mess. Then his chute opened. Pilot Smith ejected next, took the same pummeling as his body shot into the steely air, but his chute never opened and he fell, crushed, to the ground. Navigator Gradel's blast-out broke his arms and legs, his right shoulder, lashed his face and knocked him unconscious. He woke to see his parachute above him, passed out again on the way down. The needle-nosed $8,000,000 Hustler screamed down, tore a 30-ft. crater in the ground, cracked up into thousands of fist-size pieces--remarkably enough, the first B58 crash since the 1,500-m.p.h. bombers were unveiled two years ago.

At week's end, the two survivors lay limply on hospital beds. All B-58s--the hottest bombers in the Air Force arsenal--were unofficially grounded. A deep question plagued the minds of Air Force investigators: how to do a better job of protecting the flyers of the jet age against the bone-crushing hazards of bail-out at supersonic speeds.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.