About fifty miles south of Chelyabinsk, the clouds disappeared. To my left I got a good view of the Urals. Once the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia, as mountains they were not very high. Still snow-topped, on either side the land was green. It was spring in Russia. It was also a beautiful day, and now that I was back on course, the clouds behind me, I began to relax a little.
Predictably, number 360 chose this moment to be unpredictable. The autopilot began malfunctioning, causing the aircraft to pitch nose-up. To correct the condition, I had to disengage the autopilot, retrim, and fly the plane manually for a few minutes. When I reengaged the autopilot, the plane flew fine for ten to fifteen minutes, after which the pitch controls again went to the full nose-up position. The aircraft couldn’t take much of this. Again I went through the same procedure. With the same result. This time I left the autopilot disengaged.
Should I go on, I’d have to fly the plane manually the rest of the way.
It was an abort situation, and I had to make a decision: to turn around and go back, or to continue the flight. An hour earlier the decision would have been automatic; I would have gone back. But I was more than thirteen hundred miles inside Russia, and the worst of the weather appeared to be behind me, while ahead visibility looked excellent.
I decided to go on and accomplish what I had set out to do.
Normally, without this complication—having to navigate, compute ATAs and ETA, turn on the switches at the designated points, pay constant attention to the instruments to keep from exceeding the mach limitation on the high side and stalling the aircraft on the low side, the variance in speed also affecting fuel consumption—my work was cut out. Having to fly the plane manually called for an extra pair of hands.
Spotting a huge tank farm, I noted it on my map. Observing a large complex of buildings, which could have been either military or industrial, I marked them down also, with the notation “big outfit” as a reminder for debriefing.
Sverdlovsk was ahead. Formerly known as Ekaterinburg, it was here, in 1918, that Czar Nicholas II and his family were assassinated by the Bolsheviks. Once a small village, isolated from the mainstream of Russian life, in recent years it and the surrounding area had grown as astronomically as Southern California. Now an important industrial metropolis, Sverdlovsk was of special interest; I flipped the appropriate switches.
This was the first time a U-2 had flown over the area.
Once past Sverdlovsk, my route would take me northwest to Kirov, whence I would fly north to Archangel, Kandalaksha, Murmansk, and, finally, Bodö, Norway.
About thirty to forty miles southeast of Sverdlovsk, I made a ninety-degree left turn, rolled out on course, and lined up on my next flight line, which would go over the southwestern edge of the city.
I was almost exactly four hours into the flight.
Spotting an airfield that did not appear on the map, I marked it down. My route would take me directly over it.
Following the turn, I had to record the time, altitude, speed, exhaust-gas temperature, and engine-instrument readings. I was marking these down when, suddenly, there was a dull “thump,” the aircraft jerked forward, and a tremendous orange flash lit the cockpit and sky.
Time had caught up with us.
Knocked back in the seat, I said, “My God, I’ve had it now!”
The orange glow seemed to last for minutes, although it was probably gone in seconds. Yet I had time enough to think the explosion was external to the aircraft and, from the push, probably somewhere behind it.
Instinctively I grasped the throttle with my left hand, and keeping my right hand on the wheel, checked instruments. All readings normal. Engine functioning O.K. The right wing started to droop. I turned the wheel, and it came back up. Fine. Now the nose, very slowly, started to go down. Proper correction for that is to pull back on the wheel to bring it up. I pulled, but it kept going down. Either the control cable had severed or the tail was gone. I knew then I had no control of the aircraft.
As it kept nosing down, a violent movement shook the plane, flinging me all over the cockpit. I assumed both wings had come off. What was left of the plane began spinning, only upside down, the nose pointing upward toward the sky, the tail down toward the ground. All I could see was blue sky, spinning, spinning. I turned on the emergency oxygen supply. Sometime earlier—I hadn’t felt it at the time—my suit had inflated, meaning I’d lost pressurization in the cockpit. The suit was now squeezing me, while the gg forces were throwing me forward, out of the seat, up toward the nose.
I reached for the destruct switches, opening the safety covers, had my hand over them, then changed my mind, deciding I had better see if I could get into position to use the ejection seat first. Under normal circumstances, there is only a small amount of clearance in ejecting. Thrown forward as I was, if I used the ejection seat the metal canopy rails overhead would cut off both my legs. I tried to pull my legs back, couldn’t. Yanking at one leg with both my hands, I succeeded in getting my heel into the stirrup on the seat. Then I did the same with the other heel. But I was still thrown forward, out of the seat, and couldn’t get my torso back. Looking up at the canopy rails, I estimated that using the seat in this position would sever both legs about three inches above the knee.
I didn’t want to cut them off, but if it was the only way to get out…
Thus far I had felt no fear. Now I realized I was on the edge of panic. “Stop and think.” The words came back to me. A friend who had also encountered complications trying to bail out had told me of forcing himself to stop struggling and just think his way out of his predicament. I tried it, suddenly realizing the obvious. The ejection seat wasn’t the only way to leave the plane. I could climb out! So intent had I been on one solution, I had forgotten the other.
Reaching up—not far, because I had been thrown upward as well as forward, with only the seat belt holding me down—I unlocked and released the canopy. It sailed off into space.
The plane was still spinning. I glanced at the altimeter. It had passed thirty-four thousand feet and was unwinding very fast. Again I thought of the destruct switches but decided to release my seat belt first, before activating the unit. Seventy seconds is not a very long time.
Immediately the centrifugal force threw me halfway out of the aircraft, with movement so quick my body hit the rear-view mirror and snapped it off. I saw it fly away. That was the last thing I saw, because almost immediately my face plate frosted over. Something was holding me connected to the aircraft; I couldn’t see what. Then I remembered the oxygen hoses; I’d forgotten to unfasten them.
The aircraft was still spinning. I tried to climb back in to actuate the destruct switches, but couldn’t; the g forces were too great. Reaching down, I tried to feel my way to the switches. I knew they were close, six inches away from my left hand at most, but I couldn’t slip my hand under the windscreen to get at them. Unable to see, I had no idea how fast I was falling, how close to the ground…
And then I thought: I’ve just got to try to save myself now. Kicking and squirming, I must have broken the oxygen hoses, because suddenly I was free, my body just falling, floating perfectly free. It was a pleasant, exhilarating feeling. Even better than floating in a swimming pool, I remember thinking.