WEBVTT - Surviving the Highest Speed Ejection From a US Fighter Aircraft 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:03.400 We'd like to acknowledge that traditional custodians of the land 0:00:03.520 --> 0:00:06.840 on which this podcast was produced, the Galliger people of 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:10.440 the orination. We pay our respects to Elder's past and present. 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:16.520 It's April nineteen ninety five and we're in the Atlantic Ocean, 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:20.040 one hundred and four kilometers away from land. The water 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:23.439 is cold, the wind is high, the waves are strong. 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.639 Captain Brian Yudell is fighting for his life. He's just 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:32.479 survived the highest speed ejection from a US fighter aircraft 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:37.479 at nearly one three hundred kilometers per hour. He feels 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:40.760 like his body has just collided with a freight train. 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:46.080 The salt water is making him painfully aware of the 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:51.160 open wounds that cover his broken body. Brian starts to pray. 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:54.640 He has to get home to his wife, who is 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:58.720 four months pregnant with their first child. It'll be four 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:05.760 grueling hours of until Brian is rescued. I'm at Middleton 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:12.040 and this is head Game today, an unbelievable story of perseverance, 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:20.039 strength and return to the sguise. Brian, you welcome to 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:22.440 my podcast, head Game. How are you? 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:24.080 I'm well, how are you? Sir? 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:26.360 I'm always going to listen it to me, that should 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:30.400 recording you, sir, take me back to when you first 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:36.040 got into any type of aircraft and the fascination of flying. 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:37.680 When did that first hit you. 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:40.920 I'm a multi generational pilot, so it's in the DNA. 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:44.160 My father was a fighter pilot for thirty one years, 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:47.640 and I started flying when I was nine years old. 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:52.000 Aviations all I know. I've been an airplane my whole life. 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.120 So yeah, it was just a natural progression for me 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:57.560 to follow in those footsteps. 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:02.120 I suppose being around that twenty seven that's just embedded 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:03.320 in you, whether you like it or not. 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:07.720 Right, it's good and it's bad because he got no slack. 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:09.880 So yeah, I can imagine. 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.320 You know. I remember complaining once. 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:16.560 And once only once. 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:21.360 Only yes, and I said, you know, I'm tired. I was. 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:23.800 I was in the middle of pilot training and they 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:26.639 they do all of the things, they try to give 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:29.560 you twenty five hours worth of stuff and twenty four 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:30.959 hours to do it, and oh, by the way, you 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:34.000 got to find some time to sleep. And and so 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.239 I remember complaining called him up and I was like, man, Dad, 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:40.240 I'm just I'm just really tired. He goes, you don't 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.520 know tired, he goes, wait till you get to combat. 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:46.160 You work when you have to, and you sleep when 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:49.720 you can, and you just you just go. You put 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.040 it on and you go, and if there's a little break, 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:54.960 you can take a nap. But when it's time to go, 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:55.680 it's time to go. 0:02:56.080 --> 0:03:00.160 That's the classic military I suppose way is and that 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:02.880 it's when you can grab that nap, grab it because 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:04.600 you don't know when the next one's coming. 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:05.480 It's exactly right. 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.840 Tell me what happened on the eighteenth for April nineteen 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:10.480 ninety five, we were. 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:17.760 On a night training mission. Standard I was number three 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:22.000 of a four ship. We were doing what we call 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.320 a surge week, where. 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.120 So when you say number three of a fourth ship, 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:30.360 there's four four aircrafts and your number three correct. 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:32.520 This particular night, we're going to go out and do 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.840 what we call two v two aired air intercepts. That's 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:39.800 where two aircraft are going to pose two aircraft at night. 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:43.880 It's really a targeting and sorting exercise. It's a communications event. 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:49.400 You're not really shooting live you're not shooting live munitions 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:53.400 at each other, but it's the ability to effectively communicate 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:56.360 between the two aircraft between the four people in those 0:03:56.400 --> 0:04:02.720 two aircraft and effectively figure out what the presentation is 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:07.160 that the opposing group is giving you effectively communicate that 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:10.800 between the aircraft, properly target and sort, sort and target 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:13.760 those two aircraft and then put missiles in the air 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:19.000 so that you're not both targeting one aircraft or you know, 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:21.719 it's it's a lot of calm discipline. You know. The 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:25.719 success I help people war hasn't changed in a thousand years. 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:29.200 And whether you're blowing a bugle or banging on a 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:31.960 drum or waving a guide on, it's the ability to 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:35.159 effectively communicate is the side that's going to be. It's 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:38.960 going to prevail because I can communicate effectively, we can 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:43.840 put we can put force concentration in. So we're doing 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:46.400 our thing. We were actually on our fourth intercept, this 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:50.960 airplane that had some mechanical problems and what we call 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:54.320 ground aboard it twice the week before. What that means 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:57.760 is is they started the airplane up and for whatever reason, 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:01.360 it didn't pass it's built in tests, and so they 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:04.240 gave it back to maintenance to work on. When I 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:06.840 showed up at the airplane, the first thing we do is, 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:09.839 we salute the crew chief, we pick up the maintenance forms, 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.760 We review the maintenance forms. I could see that this 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:17.760 airplane had some previous discrepancies that were still kind of 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:21.320 coming up with issues. But supposedly it was a good aircraft. 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:23.920 So we do our walk around, We climb in the jet, 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:26.680 We start to jet up, and it runs through its 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:30.679 test and it failed three different tests. The central computer 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:35.960 was not operating properly, the display processor was not operating properly, 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:39.920 and the heads up display failed. And so we called 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:43.040 out maintenance. Maintenance plugs into the aircraft and we start 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:45.520 talking about it, and they said, well, you know what's 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:47.400 been fixing it before is just turn it off and 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:50.320 turn it back on. Just recycle it. Boy, I tell 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:53.480 you what, people say that to me. Yeah, right exactly. 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:55.520 But people say that to me, I just want to 0:05:55.600 --> 0:06:01.520 choke them. And so so we turned it off and 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:05.160 we turn it back on, and we repeat this multiple times, 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:07.640 and finally we've got a good airplane. There were no 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.720 spares to step two. All the other jets were broken 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:15.800 or being utilized, so it was love the one you're with. 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:17.719 So we worked it and worked at work it. Finally 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:20.600 we got a good airplane. We taxied probably five minutes 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:24.600 after the other three aircraft did. We have contingencies. Every 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:30.280 military operation has contingencies because you know your initial plan 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:32.360 very rarely is going to go as planned where you 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:37.040 don't roll x into some contingency operations. So they had 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:39.279 a contingency if I wasn't able to get down there, 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:40.920 but we were able to get down there with them, 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:44.000 get armed up, and we launched. We met up with 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:47.200 an air to air refueling tanker, a casey ten that 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:50.800 was parked in an air refueling track. We cycled through. 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:53.600 We got about four thousand pounds of gas each, and 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:56.400 then we went out into what we call the Whiskeys. 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:00.920 That's the warning areas off the coast of the United States, 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:04.080 the East coast the United States, and that allows us 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:06.440 to be able to train like we fight, meaning we 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:11.480 can go supersonic without blowing windows and knocking china off 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.080 the walls and you know, really getting people upset with us. 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:19.720 It also gives us the actual time compression. When you've 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:23.280 got two airplanes coming at each other over the mock, 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:26.960 things happen very quick. You might be one hundred and 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:29.760 fifty miles away, but that one hundred and fifty miles away. 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:32.200 When you got a closure rated over one thousand miles 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:34.000 an hour, we'll go. 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.200 By a thousand miles an hour. 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:42.040 So it's you have to be thinking fast. You have 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:43.680 to stay ahead of what's going on. 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:46.560 You're specializing it before it happens exactly. 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:49.400 And that's why we practice this over and over and over, 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.760 so it becomes where you start to see things happen 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.280 before they happen. You know what's going to happen before 0:07:55.320 --> 0:08:00.600 they happen, and then you just execute. And if things 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:03.560 aren't going the way you want them to go, you 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:08.000 have a specific outrange, and that's a range be no range. 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.440 We will be no closer than this. If we don't 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:12.600 have our ducks in a row, we don't have eything 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:17.800 doped out, we're out and you get out, and it's 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:20.440 like get out before you like you mean it, and 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.880 then come back and try to re engage again. But 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:28.080 this particular event, we got our gas, we went out 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:31.880 and the first two intercepts went off without a hitch, 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.199 and about forty five minutes into the flight, we were 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:37.400 on our third intercept, and this was the first one 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:40.360 where myself and my wingman. We're going to play what 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:45.720 we call red air the adversary side, and we're going 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:51.320 to give them a presentation that was prominent from the 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:56.960 old former Soviet Union tactics. We bring them into res 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:01.600 cell what we call resolution cell, where basically fingertip formation. 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:04.760 My women is on my left wing about three feet off, 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:07.439 and we're going to be cruising in and then when 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:09.200 we get to a range where I know that they 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:13.320 would be firing their first salvo, we're going to split apart. 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.640 My women's going to do a ninety three turn drop 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:20.559 down to a lower altitude block. We divide the airspace 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:23.240 into altitude blocks for safety of flight, because when they 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:27.600 separate and you don't know where people are, especially at night, 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.760 you can't see them. Ye want to see them that 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:36.280 you exactly, so you have your safe haven at a 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.440 specific altitude block. And our block was a ten to 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:43.280 four zeros to four block, which means ten thousand to fourteen, 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.200 twenty to twenty four thousand, thirty to thirty four thousand, 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.000 and the other two aircraft had the fives to nine, 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:51.440 so it'd be five to nine, fifteen to nineteen, twenty 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:55.000 five to twenty nine, so so forth, so my women 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.160 they drop down to the ten to fourteen block and 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:00.960 I'm still at twenty four thousand. We're in a right 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:04.320 hand turn, and we're about one hundred degrees through the turn. 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:08.640 With believe it or not, the lessons from my father. 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.680 So my father always taught me. He says, always trust 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:14.320 your instruments, because that's I had to when I was little. 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:16.960 I couldn't see out. But he goes, always listen to 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:19.800 the airplane, because if you're in tune with the airplane 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.040 and you're listening to it, airplanes will talk to you, 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:25.760 and if you are listening, they'll tell you what they're doing. 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:28.719 And what I was seeing in my instruments. Now it's 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.120 a pitch black night. There's no moon, no stars, no 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.959 discernible horizon. Everything in my world is in that hood's 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:38.079 up display, and what I'm seeing is twenty four thousand 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:40.960 feet forward or notts in a sixty year right hand turn. 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:45.320 But what I'm hearing is this airplane is getting fast. 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:47.800 I'm hearing the wind rushing over the top of the campy. 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.560 Something didn't seem right, and so I brought up a 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:56.120 different display down on a color screen between my legs 0:10:56.440 --> 0:11:00.040 that gives me similar information in a different format. That 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.280 display was showing us pointed straight at the water, and 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:06.280 instead of twenty four thousand feet and four hundred knots, 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:08.960 we were now at seventeen thousand feet and six hundred knots. 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:11.960 So I'd already lost seven thousand feet and didn't even 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:14.360 realize it until I could start hearing that wind rushing 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:17.599 over the canopy. I didn't pick up on it. The 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:20.040 airplane always trims for one g, so you don't have 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:23.199 a fill sensation in the stick. It's not like, oh, 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:26.120 I can feel the wind load as it increases. The 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:30.040 airplane automatically adjusts for that. So my only indication was 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:34.440 that sound, that wind rush over the canopy. When I 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:38.680 brought that up, I looked at I was very startled 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:43.160 because I'm now not where I thought I was, and 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:45.839 now I've got to try to figure this out. Well, 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.800 there's a thing we learned. It's called recognized, confirm, and recover. Well, 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:53.160 I recognize we've got a problem via sound and via sight. 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:57.000 I've got to try to confirm this. Unfortunately, I only 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:59.920 have my head's at display, and I have my attitude 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:04.239 indicator on this color display here, and then there's a standby. Unfortunately, 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.160 that standby is not accurate, and you'll turn out of 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:10.200 traffic this way and it'll precess that way. What is 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:13.720 primary designed for is if you lost electrics. It's a 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:18.920 gyro stabilized machine attitude indicator that I could cage and 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.440 it would give me about eight minutes of stabilized attitude 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:23.800 information to be able to get down through a weather deck. 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:26.240 But it's not going to be used for some kind 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:30.160 of out of control type recovery instrument. The second part 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:33.760 of the problem was that color display. We would turn 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:37.079 the brightness in contrast of that display down quite low 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:39.719 so that it wouldn't cast a big colorful glow on 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:44.480 the inside of that bubble canopy and create disorientation. And 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.959 so I had to sit there and try to figure 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.880 out what that actual display was telling me. And then 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.320 I could see the disparity between the two. I could 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:55.840 see the airspeed spinning up. I could see the altitude 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:58.400 spinning down. But I've got to try to figure out 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:00.680 in my upside down, my right side up, how many 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:03.200 degrees knows low am I? And so now I have 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:04.920 to stop, and I have to turn the brightness and 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:07.960 contrast of this display up and it wasn't like a 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:10.839 riostat where I could just go like that. It was 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:14.400 rocker switches. So I'm sitting here pushing buttons like this 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.280 to try to get the brightness. And the display turned 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:20.480 up and we are traveling fifteen hundred feet per second 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:24.480 straight at the water. So we started the maneuver at 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:27.760 a second. Yes, we started the maneuver at twenty four 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:30.360 thousand feet. I realized we had a problem at seventeen 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.400 thousand feet. From seventeen thousand feet to ten thousand feet, 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:37.360 I'm working this problem, so that's seven thousand feet, so 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:42.160 I basically had five seconds roughly to figure this out 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.480 make a decision either try to recover the airplane or 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:49.160 command the ejection. When we got through ten thousand feet, 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:53.920 we're now supersonic. I'm eighty degrees nos low inverted, and 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.160 I realized that there is no way. One I'm not 0:13:57.160 --> 0:13:59.520 going to bet my life that this is even telling 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.640 me the true and two I don't think I can 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:04.760 pull out of this dive without ripping the wings off 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.560 or blackness out or both. And at that point I 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.280 just commanded the ejection and got in a body position 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.640 and pulled the handles in that length of time, four 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:18.600 thousand feet. Additionally, additional four thousand feet went by. We're 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.520 now at six thousand feet. I'm pulling the ejection handles. 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:26.000 A canopy goes off at forty five hundred feet. Dennis DW. 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:29.680 Dennis White was my back seater. He went out at 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:32.720 three thousand feet. I left the cockpit at fifteen hundred 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:35.280 feet and I got my shoot roughly about five hundred 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:39.120 feet above the water. Had had I waited even a 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:41.800 third of a second longer to pull the handles, I 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:43.760 would have impacted the water still in my seat and 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:49.360 been killed. So when you talk about seeing ahead, predicting things, 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:53.080 making those decisions, the decision to get out is made 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:55.120 before you ever get in the airplane. 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:07.720 So when your Powa chute deploys, are you strapped into 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:08.920 the chair when you land. 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:13.280 No, I had about twenty five twenty to twenty five 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.880 seconds under the canopy before I hit the water. So 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:19.640 the way it works is you separate, you leave the 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:24.280 aircraft in your seat, and the seat is incredibly smart. 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:27.920 It has an altimeter in it and it has pedo 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.360 tubes on either side, so it knows how the seat 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.320 knows how fast it's going, and it knows what's attitude 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:35.960 it's in, and it knows what altitude it's at. So 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:38.440 from that it makes a decision, do I need to 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:40.640 keep him with the seat until we get down to 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:42.960 a lower altitude, or do I got to get him 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:46.000 out of this seat and get him a main choot immediately. 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.440 And in this case, because we were going so fast, 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:52.720 it actually threw out a miniature drag chute to try 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:55.080 to slow us down. But then it has to be 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:57.840 able to cut that dragshot away and then get the 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:01.280 main canopy open and separate you from the seat. All 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:04.760 of that happens in milliseconds. So it was able to 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:07.600 get me slowed down enough to where the main choot 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:12.800 wasn't destroyed upon deployment because of the excessive speed that 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:16.200 we were traveling. So it kicks me out of the seat. 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.320 I'm hanging under the canopy. I could fill the cold 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:21.560 night air on my face. I could hear the parachute 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:24.280 ruffling above me. I knew where I was. I also 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:26.840 knew I was going into the ocean. And then immediately 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:30.200 your training kicks in. You do what it's called a 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.400 post ejection checklist. It's canopy visor mass seat kit. I'll 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:36.560 be used here prepare release. I mean it's that ingrained 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:39.120 and so I look up at my canopy. I couldn't 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:41.840 see it was pitch black. Visor masks were supposed to 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:43.280 take our visor put it up on top of our 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:45.720 helmet discarder mask. I didn't have to worry about that step. 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:49.320 The whole helmet was gone. Seat kit when we deploy, 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:52.200 when we separate from the seat, we're actually sitting on 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:54.680 a seat kit which contains a one man life wrapped 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:58.080 and two survival kits. But one's called a rucksack kit. 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:00.680 The other's called a grab and dough kit. The rucksack 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:04.200 kit falls away on a fifteen foot lanyard that pulls 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.320 the one man life raft out. It falls away on 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:09.639 a fifteen foot landard that's hooked to my right hip, 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:12.840 and the weight of that rucksack kit pulls a pin 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:15.640 on a CO two cartridge that partially inflates that wrapped 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:18.639 So hanging below me, fifteen feet below me is a 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:20.840 one man life raft. Fifteen feet below that, it's that 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.040 rucksack kit, and zipped into the inside flap right up 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:26.600 underneath my butt is that grab and go kit, which 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:29.600 is about the size of a fireplace log. The rucksack 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.919 kit contains everything you need for long term survival. The 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:37.080 grab and go kit contains duplicate items, but it's mostly 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:41.160 for rescue. It's got your flares and water and radio 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:45.280 and signal mirror whistle things like that. Yeah, So, as 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:47.399 I'm coming down on the chute, I get to my 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.679 line preserver and I look down and my life preserver 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:54.320 looked like shredded rags hanging around my neck. And then 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:56.360 I got a bit concern because I know I'm going 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:58.200 into the ocean and if I don't get to something 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.080 that floats, I'm going to be a dead man. And 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.000 I'm hoping that my life preserver hanging fifteen feet below 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:07.760 me that I can't see, doesn't look like this. So 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:12.080 somewhere I had the presence of mind, and I think 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:14.639 this is where the exceptional training comes in, because I 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:16.600 was able to think clearly, I was able to keep 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:20.000 my wits about me, and I just had the presence 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:22.160 of mind to reach down and I grabbed that lanyard 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:24.679 and with my teeth and my one arm, I reeled 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:26.359 that life wrapped up to me and just at the 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:28.000 point I grabbed a hold of the raft, I could 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:29.960 tell it was inflated. I went from hanging under the 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:33.040 canopy to about ten feet under the water. Having hold 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:35.280 of that inflated wrap pulled me back up to the surface. 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:38.680 Otherwise I would have drowned. I'm in mid fifties water 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:42.040 temperature the sea states about three to five feet. The 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.320 wind's blowing about ten knots, and I'm starting to be drug. 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:47.560 My shoe catches wind and I'm starting to be drug 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:52.400 through the water. There's a very smart man. A lot 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:54.600 of the stuff that we have in our survival kits 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.560 are as a result of somebody in the past dying 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:01.159 from not having this. So what we have is the 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:03.960 pyrotechnic device on our risers, and when they sense the 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.000 salt water, if there's a charge and it blows your 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:09.400 rises away, it sounds like two shotgun shells going off 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:11.880 on either side of your head. So I came to rest, 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:15.840 still holding onto the raft, and that's when I went 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.159 to try to kick my legs to get into the raft. 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:20.239 And when I did, the top half of my leg 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:22.159 would go one way and the bottom half would go 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.800 the other. And when I kicked my left foot. My 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.880 foot would flip around backwards and then it flip around forwards, 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.639 and they were both useless. And then this arm is 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:34.760 bent back like this, so I've got one functioning arm 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:38.159 with a separated shoulder. I'm in five foot seas. I 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:40.120 know if I don't get into this raft that I'm 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:42.920 going to die of hypothermia. I'll go unconscious and that'll 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:46.120 be that. And so I'm trying to get in. I'm 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:48.080 trying to get in. I can't get in. I'm trying 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.720 to push this raft underneath me, and the wave would 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:52.680 come up and the raft would want to flip over 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:54.280 on top of me, so I'd have to let it 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:57.080 go like this and then I'd get it back up 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:02.800 underneath me. And I tried probably ten times, and I 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:04.960 just couldn't get in, couldn't get in, And now I'm 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:07.200 literally to the point of exhaustion, and I thought, this 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:08.760 is it. I'm going to die tonight. 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:10.800 Is that what you thought, Brian? Did you actually think 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:14.400 to yourself, right, I'm not going to make this, this 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:14.679 is me. 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:19.760 I'm gone, Yeah, And that's when I stopped everything. I'm 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:22.600 we wonder where I get my strength from my father? 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:25.760 My father got it from his mother. My grandmother was 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:28.880 an incredibly strong woman, and she always taught me that 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:31.280 we don't get to choose the day we're going to have. 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:33.840 We get to choose how we're going to deal with it, 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:38.400 and we should be prepared for whatever the day brings physically, mentally, emotionally, 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.840 and spiritually. And she says, if you're in and a 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:45.240 situation that you have no control over and you need help, 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:47.800 you pray for what you need, not for what you want. 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:50.040 And so I put my head down on the raft 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.640 and I say, God, I can't die tonight. I've got 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:55.440 too much to do. I've got My wife was four 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.640 months pregnant with our first child, and I thought to myself, 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.119 how selfish of it would be for me to not 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:03.280 be there and for her to get that knock on 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:05.040 the door. I did not want her to get that 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:05.879 knock on the door. 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:08.800 Your wife was four months pregnant at this time? 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:09.600 Exactly? 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:12.520 Did that thought process went through your head? Just as 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:14.320 I suppose you're going to give up, It's like, I 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:17.359 can't give up. I've got to stay alive. My wife 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:20.080 is pregnant, I've got a child on the way. And 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:24.040 was it that for that ultimately switched things up. 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:28.120 It'll give you superhuman strength, Yeah, absolutely, because I took 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:30.479 that raft. I took that raft and I shoved it 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:33.399 down into the base between my legs like this. I 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.520 threw my shoulder into it like that, and I rode 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:38.960 the wave up. And when I crested the top of 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:42.399