In 1966, an SR-71 Blackbird broke apart around its test pilot at more than three times the speed of sound, and he lived to fly again.
Story Highlights
- Lockheed test pilot Bill Weaver was flying an SR-71 at Mach 3.18 and nearly 79,000 feet when the jet came apart in two to three seconds.
- He was thrown from the breaking jet without ever pulling the ejection handle.
- His pressure suit and automatic parachutes carried him down over New Mexico, and a rancher with a helicopter reached him within minutes.
- His back-seater, Lockheed flight test specialist Jim Zwayer, was killed in the breakup.
A Test Flight At The Edge Of The Envelope
Weaver and Zwayer took off from Edwards Air Force Base in California at 11:20 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 25, 1966. The flight was a test of the SR-71’s spy and navigation systems, and of ways to cut trim drag, the extra air resistance created when control surfaces are angled to keep a jet flying level. To do that, the jet was loaded so its center of gravity, or balance point, sat farther back than normal. That cut drag, but it made the jet less stable.
After refueling from a KC-135 tanker, the Blackbird climbed to its cruising height and pushed past Mach 3, which means more than three times the speed of sound. During a planned 35-degree right turn, the right engine inlet “unstarted.” The inlet is the large opening in front of each engine that slows incoming air. In an unstart, the shock wave the inlet needs to hold in place pops out, and that engine suddenly loses its push while the other keeps going.
Two To Three Seconds
The jet yawed and rolled hard to the right and pitched its nose up. “I jammed the control stick as far left and forward as it would go. No response,” Weaver later said. At that speed and height, the crew’s odds in an ejection were poor, so they stayed with the aircraft to try to save it. There was no time. The g-forces knocked Weaver unconscious as the Blackbird broke apart. The nose section snapped off behind the rear cockpit, and both men were ripped out of the aircraft.
Weaver came to while falling through the sky. His faceplate was frozen over, and his oxygen line was partly torn loose. His pressure suit had inflated. That suit kept oxygen flowing to him and protected him from the thin air at that height, where unprotected blood can boil. A small stabilizing chute kept him from tumbling, and his main parachute opened on its own at about 15,000 feet.
A Rancher’s Helicopter
Weaver came down on a remote plateau in northeastern New Mexico. Rancher Albert Mitchell Sr., who owned his own Hughes helicopter, reached him within minutes and helped him out of his parachute. Mitchell then flew to Zwayer, who had landed nearby. Zwayer had died of a broken neck suffered in the breakup. Mitchell flew Weaver to the hospital in Tucumcari, New Mexico.
What Changed After The Crash
Testing with the SR-71’s balance point that far back was stopped. Engineers solved the trim drag problem through changes to the jet’s shape, and they improved the inlet controls. After a digital system took over the inlets, unstarts nearly stopped. Two weeks after the crash, Weaver was back in an SR-71 cockpit.
Why This Story Endures
Few people have ever been thrown from an aircraft at more than three times the speed of sound and lived. Weaver did because of a well-built pressure suit, parachutes that worked on their own, and a New Mexico rancher who flew to help. Jim Zwayer gave his life on that flight. Both men were part of the test work that helped the Blackbird become one of the most famous aircraft in American history.
