Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. The military prepares a
Speaker 1: person for the worst. Expect to be shot at, Expect
Speaker 1: long days and short nights, and most of all, expect
Speaker 1: the unexpected. Marine Lieutenant Colonel William Rankin understood what came
Speaker 1: with the job, although I'm not sure he ever could
Speaker 1: have been prepared for what happened to him on July
Speaker 1: ninety nine. Rankin had been a career Marine, having served
Speaker 1: in both World War Two and Korea. He'd been flying
Speaker 1: alongside his wingman, Navy Lieutenant Herbert no And, in a
Speaker 1: pair of fighter jets known as F eight Crusaders. It
Speaker 1: was a high altitude flight which put the men about
Speaker 1: nine miles or forty seven thousand feet above the ground.
Speaker 1: Both pilots were on their way to an air station
Speaker 1: minutes away from Beauford, South Carolina, when they noticed something
Speaker 1: below them. A storm. Of course, high above the clouds,
Speaker 1: Ranking and Nolan had nothing to worry about. Lightning flashed
Speaker 1: and thunder rattled beneath their planes, but it was well
Speaker 1: out of reach, and yet they'd have to fly through
Speaker 1: that mess to make it to their station in time.
Speaker 1: No matter, their planes were the top of the line,
Speaker 1: capable of handling enemy fire and whatever weather came their way.
Speaker 1: Until a voice came over Nolan's radio. It was Ranking
Speaker 1: and he was in trouble power failure. He said, may
Speaker 1: have to eject. His engine had died without warning, and
Speaker 1: his plane was starting to nose dive. So he did
Speaker 1: the only thing he could think of, despite what was
Speaker 1: waiting underneath him. He pulled a pair of handles and
Speaker 1: triggered an ejection. He was launching upward as his crusader
Speaker 1: plummeted to the ground. You see, there were actually two
Speaker 1: problems facing Rankin at that moment. Yes, the thunderstorm raging
Speaker 1: below was a concern, but the greater risk was the
Speaker 1: decompression sickness he was about to experience, also known as
Speaker 1: the bends. It's a common affliction for deep sea divers
Speaker 1: whose surfaced too quickly. Rankin had left the pressurized safety
Speaker 1: of his jet and was now floating nine miles above
Speaker 1: the earth as nitrogen bubbles began surfacing in his blood.
Speaker 1: He would later describe the sensation as though his abdomen
Speaker 1: had bloated to twice its size. And then there was
Speaker 1: also the cold. So high up, without any protection for
Speaker 1: his ankles and wrists, his extremities went numb. He couldn't
Speaker 1: deploy his shoot yet, not until he reached ten thousand feet.
Speaker 1: Any sooner and he'd be killed by a combination and
Speaker 1: of cold, decompression, sickness, and a lack of oxygen. So
Speaker 1: he fell straight down into the center of a roiling storm,
Speaker 1: and it all would have been over quickly if he
Speaker 1: had descended at his current rate, But fate had another plan.
Speaker 1: Rankin's shoot deployed too early, well before he'd cleared the
Speaker 1: worst of the storm, and now lightning crackled around him
Speaker 1: as the wind threw him around like a plastic bag.
Speaker 1: The thunder shook his bones, fist sized hail fell around him,
Speaker 1: threatening to turn his parachute into Swiss cheese. And then
Speaker 1: there was the rain. Rankin took deep breaths, but instead
Speaker 1: of air, sheets of water filled his nose and lungs
Speaker 1: like he was breathing under water. All of this while
Speaker 1: the decompression sickness got worse. Blood oozed from his nose, ears,
Speaker 1: and eyes. The world spun around him, or maybe the
Speaker 1: wind had decided to play with him like a cat
Speaker 1: with a ball of yarn. Minutes or he'd entered the storm,
Speaker 1: he emerged on the other side, his shot still intact
Speaker 1: as he floated to safety. Unfortunately, though the storm had
Speaker 1: one last trick to play. It's strong winds had carried
Speaker 1: him sixty five miles off target, away toward a gathering
Speaker 1: of trees, where his shoot got caught on some branches.
Speaker 1: When he landed, he smashed into one of the trunks.
Speaker 1: Dazed and nauseous, he cut himself loose and stumbled out
Speaker 1: onto a nearby road, where he flagged down a passing driver,
Speaker 1: who took him to the nearest shop to call an ambulance. Amazingly,
Speaker 1: Rankin walked away from his adventure with only minor injuries.
Speaker 1: He eventually wrote a memoir about his forty minute plunge,
Speaker 1: having become the first and only person to fall through
Speaker 1: a cumulo nimbus storm cloud and live to talk about it. Shocking,
Speaker 1: I know. Statistically speaking, it's the safest way to travel,
Speaker 1: despite the horrific news reports the number of fatal airline
Speaker 1: accidents has actually gone down steadily over the last ten years,
Speaker 1: no pun intended, I swear, while car accidents still rank
Speaker 1: as one of the primary causes of death all over
Speaker 1: the world. In America, you're more likely to choke on
Speaker 1: a piece of chicken than you are to die in
Speaker 1: a plane crash, And yet the stories and the fears
Speaker 1: that come with them still persist, likely because such incidents
Speaker 1: don't happen every day. When a commercial jet airliner disappears
Speaker 1: over the ocean, it sparks alarm and outrage. Questions about
Speaker 1: safety and what could have been done are asked, while
Speaker 1: manufacturers dumped millions into preventative efforts, and yet people still fly,
Speaker 1: and the airplanes they ride in still take off and
Speaker 1: land thousands of times each day. They have to, because
Speaker 1: if we dwelled on every time a plane fell out
Speaker 1: of the sky, we never stepped foot on one again.
Speaker 1: We remember t w A Flight eight hundred, which exploded
Speaker 1: and sunk into the ocean shortly after takeoff in nine.
Speaker 1: Malaysian Airlines Flight three seventy crashed into the Indian Ocean
Speaker 1: in two thousand fourteen, taking two hundred thirty souls with it,
Speaker 1: And then there was Air France flight three. The plane
Speaker 1: was an Airbus, a commercial airliner powered by four massive
Speaker 1: engines and capable of carrying over three hundred people across
Speaker 1: the world. It left Paris's Charles de Gaul Airport the
Speaker 1: morning of August second, two thousand five. Eight hours later,
Speaker 1: it landed in Toronto, sort of. The plane had been
Speaker 1: reliable since it debuted in nine. With three thousand, seven
Speaker 1: hundred eleven flights under its wing and a season pilot
Speaker 1: in the cockpit, there had been no reason to worry
Speaker 1: about the plane not reaching its destination two d in
Speaker 1: Ninete passengers boarded that morning from countries all over the world.
Speaker 1: The flight itself had gone well, traveling over thirty seven
Speaker 1: miles across the North Atlantic to reach a particularly rainy
Speaker 1: and windy Toronto, Canada. Other flights at Pierson International Airport
Speaker 1: had been grounded or delayed due to the thunder storms
Speaker 1: in the area. It wasn't safe for people to be
Speaker 1: in the air, but for those who already were, there
Speaker 1: really weren't any other options. By the time they began
Speaker 1: to approach the airport, Flight three needed to land, and
Speaker 1: fast gas was running low. It had been cleared for
Speaker 1: landing but was forced to turn up again and circle
Speaker 1: back due to the strong winds. The turbulence shook the plane,
Speaker 1: rocking the passengers from side to side. When the wheels
Speaker 1: finally touched down, a handful of small explosions outside were
Speaker 1: spotted from both passengers and the control tower. Fire had
Speaker 1: broken out, Smoke began to fill the cabin, and yet
Speaker 1: the plane showed no signs of stopping. It careemed down
Speaker 1: the runway past the other parked planes. People inside gripped
Speaker 1: their arm rests and the seats in front of them
Speaker 1: to brace for impact. Panic spread throughout the cabin until
Speaker 1: the plane came crashing to a halt in a ravine
Speaker 1: just past the airport. The fire spread further inside. Rescue
Speaker 1: personnel were deployed to try and contain it. Flight attendants
Speaker 1: fought through the smoke to open the emergency exits and
Speaker 1: deploy the slides, but one deflated after a fragment from
Speaker 1: the plane had punctured it. The two rear exits wouldn't
Speaker 1: open because of the fire. It was too late. Despite
Speaker 1: the efforts by first responders, Air France three fifty eight
Speaker 1: had burned beyond repair, leaving behind only a smoking husk
Speaker 1: waiting to be carded off for investigation, and the poor passengers,
Speaker 1: all two ninety seven of them, as well as the
Speaker 1: flight crew. They survived every last one stepped off the
Speaker 1: plane thanks to the flight attendants quick thinking. While a
Speaker 1: few suffered serious injuries, there were no reported fatalities and
Speaker 1: most victims came away with only minor scratches and bruises.
Speaker 1: Experts describe it as a textbook evacuation, though the crash
Speaker 1: had been anything but textbook. It's only fitting that an
Speaker 1: incident of such magnitude, one that could have taken the
Speaker 1: lives of hundreds of travelers, has come to be known
Speaker 1: by a new name, the Toronto Miracle. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.