https://uss-la-ca135.org/60/1960Judkins-Knott.html

Source : Chapter 7 in author Ron Knott's new book : ' SUPERSONIC
COWBOYS '
(sharing forty-five Crusader stories) " I  Fell 15,000 Feet And Lived
" by Cliff Judkins [abridged]


[knott-f8cl]

CHAPTER SEVEN
I FELL 15,000 FEET AND LIVED
CLIFF JUDKINS


    "Jud, you're on fire, get out of there!"
    Needless to say that startling command got my attention. As you
will read in this report, this was just the beginning of my problems!
    It had all started in the brilliant sunlight 20,000 feet above
the Pacific Ocean as I nudged my F-8 Crusader jet into position
behind the lumbering, deep-bellied refueling plane. After a moment of
jockeying for position, I made the connection and matched my speed to
that of the slowpoke tanker. I made the graceful task of plugging
into the trailing fuel conduit so they could pump fuel into my tanks.
    This in-flight refueling process was necessary, and routine,
because the F-8 could not hold enough fuel to fly from California to
Hawaii. This routine mission was labeled "Trans-Pac," meaning Flying
Airplanes across the Pacific. This had been going on for years.

[knott-f8-r]
Crusaders in-flight refueling from a C-130 Tanker

    Soon, after plugging-in to the tanker, my fuel gauges stirred,
showing that all was well. In my cockpit, I was relaxed and
confident. As I was looking around, I was struck for an instant by
the eeriness of the scene: here I was, attached, like an unwanted
child, by an umbilicus to a gargantuan mother who was fleeing across
the sky at 200 knots as though from some unnamed danger. Far below us
was a broken layer of clouds that filtered the sun glare over the
Pacific.
    In my earphones, I heard Major Van Campen, our flight leader,
chatting with Major D.K. Tooker who was on a Navy destroyer down
below. Major Tooker had ejected from his aircraft, the day before, in
this same area, when his Crusader flamed out mysteriously during the
same type of refueling exercise.
    At that time no one knew why his aircraft had flamed out. We all
supposed it had been some freak accident that sometimes happens with
no explanation.  One thing we knew for sure, it was not pilot error.
This accident had to be some kind of mechanical malfunction, but
what? Our squadron had a perfect safety record and was very disturbed
because of the loss of an airplane the day before.
     "Eleven minutes to mandatory disconnect point," the tanker
commander said.
    I checked my fuel gages again, everything appeared normal.
    My thoughts were, "In a few hours I knew we'd all be having
dinner at the Kaneohe Officers Club on Oahu, Hawaii. Then after a
short rest, we'd continue our 6,000-mile trek to Atsugi, Japan, via
Midway and Wake Island." Our whole outfit - Marine All Weather
Fighter Squadron 323 - was being transferred to the Far East for a
one-year period of operations.
    "Nine minutes to mandatory disconnect."
    My fuel gages indicated that the tanks were almost full. I
noticed that my throttle lever was sticking a little. That was
unusual, because the friction lock was holding it in place and was
loose enough. It grew tighter as I tried to manipulate it gently.
    Then - thud!  I heard the crack of an explosion.
    I could see the rpm gauge unwinding and the tailpipe temperature
dropping. The aircraft had lost power - the engine had quit running -
this is a flame-out!  
    I punched the mike button, and said, "This is Jud. I've got a
flame-out!" 
Unfortunately, my radio was already dead; I was neither sending nor
receiving anything via my radio.
    I quickly disconnected from the tanker and nosed the aircraft
over, into a shallow dive, to pick up some flying speed to help
re-start the engine. I needed a few seconds to think.
    I yanked the handle that extended the air-driven emergency
generator, called the Ram Air Turbine (RAT), into the slipstream,
hoping to get ignition for an air start. The igniters clicked gamely,
and the rpm indicator started to climb slowly, as did the tailpipe
temperature. This was a positive indication that a re-start was
beginning. For one tantalizing moment I thought everything would be
all right. But the rpm indicator hung uncertainly at 30 percent of
capacity and refused to go any faster. This is not nearly enough
power to maintain flight. 
    The fire warning light (pilots call it the panic light) blinked
on. This is not a good sign. And to make matters worse, jet fuel
poured over the canopy like water from a bucket. At the same instant,
my radio came back on, powered by the emergency generator, and a
great babble of voices burst through my earphones.
    "Jud, you're on fire, get out of there!"
    Fuel was pouring out of my aircraft; from the tailpipe; from the
intake duct; from under the wings, and igniting behind me in a great
awesome trail of fire.
    The suddenness of the disaster overwhelmed me, and I thought:
"This can't be happening to me!"
    The voices in my ears kept urging me to fire the ejection seat
and abandon my aircraft.
    I pressed my mike button and told the flight leader, "I'm getting
out!"
    I took my hands off the flight controls and reached above my head
for the canvas curtain that would start the ejection sequence. I
pulled it down hard over my face and waited for the tremendous kick
in the pants, which would send me rocketing upward, free of the
aircraft.
    Nothing happened! The canopy, which was designed to jettison in
the first part of the ejection sequence did not move. It was still in
place and so was I.
    My surprise lasted only a second. Then I reached down between my
knees for the alternate ejection-firing handle, and gave it a
vigorous pull. Again, nothing happened. This was very surprising.
Both, the primary, and the secondary ejection procedures had failed
and I was trapped in the cockpit of the burning aircraft.
    The plane was now in a steep 60-degree dive. For the first time,
I felt panic softening the edges of my determination. I knew that I
had to do something or I was going to die in this sick airplane.
There was no way out of it. With great effort, I pulled my thoughts
together and tried to imagine some solution.
    A voice in my earphones was shouting: "Ditch the plane! Ditch it
in the ocean!"
    It must have come from the tanker skipper or one of the destroyer
commanders down below, because every jet pilot knows you can't ditch
a jet and survive. The plane would hit the water at a very high a
speed, flip over and sink like a stone and they usually explode on
impact.
    I grabbed the control stick and leveled the aircraft. Then I
yanked the alternate handle again in an attempt to fire the canopy
and start the ejection sequence, but still nothing happened. That
left me with only one imaginable way out, which was to jettison the
canopy manually and try to jump from the aircraft without aid of the
ejection seat.
 Was such a thing possible? I was not aware of any Crusader pilot who
had ever used this World War II tactic to get out of a fast flying
jet. I had been told that this procedure, of bailing out of a jet,
was almost impossible. Yes, the pilot may get out of the airplane but
the massive 20-foot high tail section is almost certain to strike the
pilot's body and kill him before he falls free of the aircraft. My
desperation was growing, and any scheme that offered a shred of
success seemed better than riding that aircraft into the sea, which
would surely be fatal.
    I disconnected the canopy by hand, and with a great whoosh it
disappeared from over my head never to be seen again. Before trying
to get out of my confined quarters, I trimmed the aircraft to fly in
a kind of sidelong skid: nose high and with the tail swung around
slightly to the right.
    Then I stood up in the seat and put both arms in front of my
face. I was sucked out harshly from the airplane. I cringed as I
tumbled outside the bird, expecting the tail to cut me in half, but
thank goodness, that never happened!     In an instant I knew I was
out of there and uninjured.
    I waited . . . and waited . . . until my body, hurtling through
space, with the 225 knots of momentum started to decelerate. I pulled
the D-ring on my parachute, which is the manual way to open the chute
if the ejection seat does not work automatically. I braced myself for
the opening shock. I heard a loud pop above me, but I was still
falling very fast. As I looked up I saw that the small pilot chute
had deployed. (This small chute is designed to keep the pilot from
tumbling until the main chute opens.) But, I also noticed a sight
that made me shiver with disbelief and horror! The main, 24-foot
parachute was just flapping in the breeze and was tangled in its own
shroud lines. It hadn't opened! I could see the white folds neatly
arranged, fluttering feebly in the air.
    "This is very serious," I thought.
    Frantically, I shook the risers in an attempt to balloon the
chute and help it open. It didn't work. I pulled the bundle down
toward me and wrestled with the shroud lines, trying my best to get
the chute to open. The parachute remained closed. All the while I am
falling like a rock toward the ocean.
    I looked down hurriedly. There was still plenty of altitude
remaining. I quickly developed a frustrating and sickening feeling. 
I wanted everything to halt while I collected my thoughts, but my
fall seemed to accelerate.  I noticed a ring of turbulence in the
ocean. It looked like a big stone had been thrown in the water. It
had white froth at its center; I finally realized this is where my
plane had crashed in the ocean.
    "Would I be next to crash?" were my thoughts!
    Again, I shook the parachute risers and shroud lines, but the
rushing air was holding my chute tightly in a bundle. I began to
realize that I had done all I could reasonably do to open the chute
and it was not going to open. I was just along for a brutal ride that
may kill or severely injure me.
    I descended rapidly through the low clouds. Now there was only
clear sky between me and the ocean. This may be my last view of the
living. I have no recollection of positioning myself properly or even
bracing for the impact. In fact, I don't remember hitting the water
at all. At one instant I was falling very fast toward the ocean. The
next thing I remember is hearing a shrill, high-pitched whistle that
hurt my ears.
    Suddenly, I was very cold. In that eerie half-world of
consciousness, I thought, "Am I alive?" I finally decided, and not
all at once, "Yes, I think I am . . . I am alive!"
    The water helped clear my senses. But as I bounced around in the
water I began coughing and retching. The Mae West around my waist had
inflated. I concluded that the shrill whistling sound that I had
heard was the gas leaving the CO2 cylinders as it was filling the
life vest.
    A sense of urgency gripped me, as though there were some task I
ought to be performing. Then it dawned on me what it was. The
parachute was tugging at me from under the water. It had finally
billowed out (much too late) like some Brobdingnagian Portuguese
man-of-war. I tried reaching down for my hunting knife located in the
knee pocket of my flight suit. I had to cut the shroud lines of the
chute before it pulled me under for good.
This is when I first discovered that I was injured severely. The pain
was excruciating. Was my back broken? I tried to arch it slightly and
felt the pain again. I tried moving my feet, but that too was
impossible. They were immobile, and I could feel the bones in them
grating against each other.
    There was no chance of getting that hunting knife, but I had
another, smaller one in the upper torso of my flight suit. With
difficulty, I extracted it and began slashing feebly at the
spaghetti-like shroud line mess surrounding me.
Once free of the parachute, I began a tentative search for the
survival pack. It contained a one-man life raft, some canned water,
food, fishing gear, and dye markers. The dye markers colored the
water around the pilot to aid the rescue team in finding a down
airman. All of this survival equipment should have been strapped to
my hips. It was not there. It had been ripped away from my body upon
impact with the water.
    "How long would the Mae West sustain me?" I wondered.
    I wasn't sure, but I knew I needed help fast. The salt water that
I had swallowed felt like an enormous rock in the pit of my gut. But
worst of all, here I was, completely alone, 600 miles from shore,
lolling in the deep troughs and crests of the Pacific Ocean. And my
Crusader aircraft, upon which had been lavished such affectionate
attention, was sinking thousands of feet to the bottom of the ocean.
    At that moment, I was struck by the incredible series of
coincidences that had just befallen me. I knew that my misfortune had
been a one-in-a-million occurrence. In review, I noted that the
explosion aloft should not have happened. The ejection mechanism
should have worked. The parachute should have opened. None of these
incidents should have happened. I had just experienced three major
catastrophes in one flight. My squadron had a perfect safety record.
"Why was all of this happening?" was my thinking.
    In about ten minutes I heard the drone of a propeller-driven
plane. The pot-bellied, four-engine tanker came into view, flying
very low. They dropped several green dye markers near me, and some
smoke flares a short distance from my position. They circled overhead
and dropped an inflated life raft about 50 yards from me.
    I was so pleased and tried to swim toward the raft. When I took
two strokes, I all most blacked out due to the intense pain in my
body. The tanker circled again and dropped another raft closer to me,
but there was no way for me to get to it, or in it, in my condition.
    The water seemed to be getting colder, and a chill gripped me. I
looked at my watch, but the so-called unbreakable crystal was
shattered and the hands torn away. I tried to relax and surrender to
the Pacific Ocean swells. I could almost have enjoyed being buoyed up
to the crest of one swell and gently sliding into the trough of the
next, but I was in such excruciating pain. I remembered the words
W.C. Fields had chosen for his epitaph: "On the whole, I'd rather be
in Philadelphia."
    In about an hour, a Coast Guard amphibian plane flew over and
circled me as though deciding whether or not to land. But the seas
were high and I knew he couldn't make it. He came in very low and
dropped another raft; this one had a 200-foot lanyard attached to it.
The end of the lanyard landed barely ten feet from me. I paddled
gently backward using only my arms. I caught hold of it and pulled
the raft to me. Even before trying, I knew I couldn't crawl into the
raft due to my physical condition. I was able to get a good grip on
its side and hold on. This gave me a little security.
    The Coast Guard amphibian gained altitude and flew off. (I
learned later that he headed for a squadron of minesweepers that was
returning to the United States from a tour of the Western Pacific. He
was unable to tune to their radio frequency for communications. But
this ingenious pilot lowered a wire from his aircraft and dragged it
across the bow of the minesweeper, the USS Embattle. The minesweeper
captain understood the plea, and veered off at top speed in my
direction.)
    I was fully conscious during the two and a half hours it took the
ship to reach me. I spotted the minesweeper while teetering at the
crest of a wave. Soon, its great bow was pushing in toward me and I
could see sailors in orange lifejackets crowding its lifelines. A
bearded man in a black rubber suit jumped into the water and swam to
me.
    "Are you hurt?" he asked.
    "Yes," I said. "My legs and back."
    I was now very cold and worried about the growing numbness in my
legs. Perhaps the imminence of rescue made me light-headed, for I
only vaguely remember being hoisted aboard the ship. I was laid out
on the ship's deck as they cut away my flight suit.
    "Don't touch my legs! Don't touch my legs!" I screamed.
    I don't remember it. Somebody gave me a shot of morphine and this
erased part of my extreme pain.
    An hour or so later a man was bending over me and asking
questions. (It was a doctor who had been high-lined over from the USS
Los Angeles, a cruiser that had been operating in the area.)
    He said, "You have a long scar on your abdomen. How did it get
there?"
    I told him about a serious auto accident I'd had four years
earlier in Texas, and that my spleen had been removed at that time.
    He grunted, and asked more questions while he continued examining
me. Then he said, "You and I are going to take a little trip over to
the USS Los Angeles; it's steaming alongside."
Somehow they got me into a wire stretcher, and hauled me, dangling
and dipping, across the watery interval between the Embattle and the
cruiser.
    In the Los Angeles's sickbay, they gave me another shot of
morphine, thank God, and started thrusting all sorts of hoses into my
body. I could tell from all the activity, and from the intense,
hushed voices, that they were very worried about my condition.
    My body temperature was down to 94 degrees; my intestines and
kidneys were in shock. The doctors never left my side during the
night. They took my blood pressure every 15 minutes. I was unable to
sleep. Finally, I threw-up about a quart or more of seawater. After
this my nausea was relieved a bit.
    By listening to the medical team, who was working on me, I was
able to piece together the nature of my injuries. This is what I
heard them saying. My left ankle was broken in five places. My right
ankle was broken in three places. A tendon in my left foot was cut.
My right pelvis was fractured. My number 7 vertebra was fractured. My
left lung had partially collapsed. There were many cuts and bruises
all over my face and body, and, my intestines and kidneys had been
shaken into complete inactivity.
    The next morning Dr. Valentine Rhodes told me that the Los
Angeles was steaming at flank speed to a rendezvous with a helicopter
100 miles from Long Beach, California.
    At 3:30 that afternoon, I was hoisted into the belly of a Marine
helicopter from the USS Los Angeles's fantail, and we whirred off to
a hospital ship, the USS Haven, docked in Long Beach, CA.
    Once aboard the Haven, doctors came at me from all sides with
more needles, tubes, and X-ray machines. Their reaction to my
condition was so much more optimistic than I had expected. I finally
broke down and let go a few tears of relief, exhaustion, and thanks
to all hands and God.
    Within a few months I was all systems go again. My ankles were
put back in place with the help of steel pins. The partially
collapsed left lung re-inflated and my kidneys and intestines were
working again without the need of prodding.
    The Marine Corps discovered the cause of my flame-out, and that
of Major Tooker, the day before, was the failure of an automatic
cut-off switch in the refueling system.  The aircraft's main fuel
tank was made of heavy reinforced rubber. When the cut-off switch
failed, this allowed the tank to overfill and it burst like a
balloon. This then caused the fire and flameout. We will never know
why the ejection seat failed to work since it is in the bottom of the
ocean. The parachute failure is a mystery also. Like they say, "Some
days you are the dog and others you are the fire-plug."
    Do I feel lucky? That word doesn't even begin to describe my
feelings. To survive a 15,000-foot fall with an unopened chute is a
fair enough feat. My mind keeps running back to something Dr. Rhodes
told me in the sickbay of the Los Angeles during those grim and
desperate hours.
    He said that if I had had a spleen, it almost certainly would
have ruptured when I hit the water, and I would have bled to death.
Of the 25 pilots in our squadron, I am the only one without a spleen.
It gives me something to think about. Maybe it does you as well.

        Cliff Judkins


[Author's Note: Amazingly, Cliff Judkins not only survived this
ordeal but he also returned to flight status. He was flying the F-8
Crusader again within six months after the accident. After leaving
the Marine Corps he was hired as a pilot with Delta Airlines and
retired as a Captain from that position.]



    Thanks to Ron Knott for permission to use the story from his
book, and thanks again to Cliff Judkins for sharing his amazing
experience with us.  Finally, thanks and God Bless both men for their
service to our country.  
        Semper Fi    - 23 may 2009