Stormy Weather

the unexpected. Marine Lieutenant Colonel William Rankin understood what came with the job, although I'm not sure he ever could have been prepared for what happened to him on July ninety nine. Rankin had been a career Marine, having served in both World War Two and Korea. He'd been flying alongside his wingman, Navy Lieutenant Herbert no And, in a

pair of fighter jets known as F eight Crusaders. It was a high altitude flight which put the men about nine miles or forty seven thousand feet above the ground. Both pilots were on their way to an air station minutes away from Beauford, South Carolina, when they noticed something below them. A storm. Of course, high above the clouds,

Ranking and Nolan had nothing to worry about. Lightning flashed and thunder rattled beneath their planes, but it was well out of reach, and yet they'd have to fly through that mess to make it to their station in time. No matter, their planes were the top of the line, capable of handling enemy fire and whatever weather came their way. Until a voice came over Nolan's radio. It was Ranking and he was in trouble power failure. He said, may have to eject. His engine had died without warning, and

his plane was starting to nose dive. So he did the only thing he could think of, despite what was waiting underneath him. He pulled a pair of handles and triggered an ejection. He was launching upward as his crusader plummeted to the ground. You see, there were actually two problems facing Rankin at that moment. Yes, the thunderstorm raging below was a concern, but the greater risk was the decompression sickness he was about to experience, also known as

the bends. It's a common affliction for deep sea divers whose surfaced too quickly. Rankin had left the pressurized safety of his jet and was now floating nine miles above the earth as nitrogen bubbles began surfacing in his blood. He would later describe the sensation as though his abdomen had bloated to twice its size. And then there was also the cold. So high up, without any protection for

his ankles and wrists, his extremities went numb. He couldn't deploy his shoot yet, not until he reached ten thousand feet. Any sooner and he'd be killed by a combination and of cold, decompression, sickness, and a lack of oxygen. So he fell straight down into the center of a roiling storm, and it all would have been over quickly if he had descended at his current rate, But fate had another plan.

Rankin's shoot deployed too early, well before he'd cleared the worst of the storm, and now lightning crackled around him as the wind threw him around like a plastic bag. The thunder shook his bones, fist sized hail fell around him, threatening to turn his parachute into Swiss cheese. And then there was the rain. Rankin took deep breaths, but instead of air, sheets of water filled his nose and lungs like he was breathing under water. All of this while

the decompression sickness got worse. Blood oozed from his nose, ears, and eyes. The world spun around him, or maybe the wind had decided to play with him like a cat with a ball of yarn. Minutes or he'd entered the storm, he emerged on the other side, his shot still intact as he floated to safety. Unfortunately, though the storm had one last trick to play. It's strong winds had carried him sixty five miles off target, away toward a gathering of trees, where his shoot got caught on some branches.

When he landed, he smashed into one of the trunks. Dazed and nauseous, he cut himself loose and stumbled out onto a nearby road, where he flagged down a passing driver, who took him to the nearest shop to call an ambulance. Amazingly, Rankin walked away from his adventure with only minor injuries. He eventually wrote a memoir about his forty minute plunge, having become the first and only person to fall through a cumulo nimbus storm cloud and live to talk about it. Shocking,

I know. Statistically speaking, it's the safest way to travel, despite the horrific news reports the number of fatal airline accidents has actually gone down steadily over the last ten years, no pun intended, I swear, while car accidents still rank as one of the primary causes of death all over

the world. In America, you're more likely to choke on a piece of chicken than you are to die in a plane crash, And yet the stories and the fears that come with them still persist, likely because such incidents don't happen every day. When a commercial jet airliner disappears

over the ocean, it sparks alarm and outrage. Questions about safety and what could have been done are asked, while manufacturers dumped millions into preventative efforts, and yet people still fly, and the airplanes they ride in still take off and land thousands of times each day. They have to, because if we dwelled on every time a plane fell out of the sky, we never stepped foot on one again.

We remember t w A Flight eight hundred, which exploded and sunk into the ocean shortly after takeoff in nine. Malaysian Airlines Flight three seventy crashed into the Indian Ocean in two thousand fourteen, taking two hundred thirty souls with it, And then there was Air France flight three. The plane was an Airbus, a commercial airliner powered by four massive engines and capable of carrying over three hundred people across the world. It left Paris's Charles de Gaul Airport the

morning of August second, two thousand five. Eight hours later, it landed in Toronto, sort of. The plane had been reliable since it debuted in nine. With three thousand, seven hundred eleven flights under its wing and a season pilot in the cockpit, there had been no reason to worry about the plane not reaching its destination two d in Ninete passengers boarded that morning from countries all over the world.

The flight itself had gone well, traveling over thirty seven miles across the North Atlantic to reach a particularly rainy and windy Toronto, Canada. Other flights at Pierson International Airport had been grounded or delayed due to the thunder storms in the area. It wasn't safe for people to be in the air, but for those who already were, there really weren't any other options. By the time they began to approach the airport, Flight three needed to land, and

fast gas was running low. It had been cleared for landing but was forced to turn up again and circle back due to the strong winds. The turbulence shook the plane, rocking the passengers from side to side. When the wheels finally touched down, a handful of small explosions outside were spotted from both passengers and the control tower. Fire had broken out, Smoke began to fill the cabin, and yet the plane showed no signs of stopping. It careemed down

the runway past the other parked planes. People inside gripped their arm rests and the seats in front of them to brace for impact. Panic spread throughout the cabin until the plane came crashing to a halt in a ravine just past the airport. The fire spread further inside. Rescue personnel were deployed to try and contain it. Flight attendants fought through the smoke to open the emergency exits and deploy the slides, but one deflated after a fragment from

the plane had punctured it. The two rear exits wouldn't open because of the fire. It was too late. Despite the efforts by first responders, Air France three fifty eight had burned beyond repair, leaving behind only a smoking husk waiting to be carded off for investigation, and the poor passengers, all two ninety seven of them, as well as the flight crew. They survived every last one stepped off the

plane thanks to the flight attendants quick thinking. While a few suffered serious injuries, there were no reported fatalities and most victims came away with only minor scratches and bruises. Experts describe it as a textbook evacuation, though the crash had been anything but textbook. It's only fitting that an incident of such magnitude, one that could have taken the lives of hundreds of travelers, has come to be known by a new name, the Toronto Miracle. I hope you've

enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.