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From Beale AFB News Site:
U-2 Pilot Comes Face-to-Face with Death and Wins
by Airman 1st Class George Cloutier
9th RW Public Affairs
11/22/2006 - Beale AFB, Calif. -- The day started out perfectly; a chance to get a much needed break from the office, to see the sun rise over the earth. Little did this U-2 pilot know that what started off as the best day in weeks would turn out to be the worst day of his life.
"That morning, everything was just going right," said Lt. Col. Kevin Henry, 99th Reconnaissance Squadron assistant director of operations. "It was a beautiful early morning pre-sunrise take off. I was psyched to go."
After taking care of a few extra duties he had assumed while at his forward operation location, the colonel went to suit up for his flight. Unknown to anyone at the time, this would be the critical phase that nearly spelled his death in the hours to come.
"The only thing that wasn't going right was my pre-breathe that morning," the colonel said. "I was having trouble with my helmet. I kept playing with stuff, and all the sudden I thought I had fixed it."
U-2 pilots are required to breathe pure oxygen for one hour before flying, which removes nitrogen from the body, preventing what is known as the bends, or decompression sickness.
When someone experiences DCS, the nitrogen, usually diffused in the body's tissues, begins to boil off due to the increased altitude, forming tiny bubbles throughout the body. Though usually harmless but uncomfortable, DCS can become fatal if left untreated.
"The bottom line is none of us thought to adjust the take off time," the colonel said.
Due to this simple error, the colonel's body had not had the required full hour pre-breathe before taking off. The simple mistake would later lead to the chain of events that almost ended the colonel's life.
"It was probably when I was in the air for about three hours when weird things started to happen," he said. "First, I looked up all of the sudden and saw the plane take a 30 degree roll."
The hallucination was a product of nitrogen bubbles beginning to build up in the colonel's brain. Along with a headache and general feeling of illness, another side effect of DCS is a gradual loss of cognitive ability.
"I was having trouble putting in the destination coordinates," the colonel said. "It was like I was dyslexic."
As the colonel slowly lost his ability to operate the jet's navigation and radio systems, he eventually had to radio back for help with a routine procedure.
"I went to transfer my files, which is really an easy thing to do, and I couldn't remember how to do it," the colonel said. "I told them I didn't remember how to transfer files and that they need to tell ops I wasn't feeling too good."
"Once he said that, I knew that things were going terribly wrong," said Capt. Shawn South, 13th Intelligence Squadron UAV Flight commander, who was serving as the mission operations commander that day. "I remember looking at my surveillance and warning supervisor, Tech. Sgt. Thomas Keene, right after he said that. We gave each other that look ... the look that the situation had just turned serious and we needed to start planning for the worst."
Sensing the colonel's situation, Captain South called 9th Reconnaissance Wing command post asking for a veteran U-2 pilot who could better relate to the distressed pilot.
"The morning it happened, I got a call at 1:30 a.m. to head over to Deployable Ground Station 2 to get on a radio with a pilot who was having problems," said Lt. Col. David Russell, 99th Reconnaissance Squadron commander and veteran U-2 pilot. "I didn't know what that meant at 1:30 on a Saturday morning."
After walking Colonel Henry through the process of sending his files, the situation suddenly took another sharp turn for the worst.
"Somewhere out of the blue, I didn't feel nauseous or anything and I threw up all over the inside of the helmet," Colonel Henry said.
The sudden vomiting was a definite sign to everyone in the DGS that something was severely wrong. Preparations began for the multitude of ways the scenario could play out, with emergency responders being put on alert and host-nation emergency services being notified. All the while, Colonel Russell stayed in communication with Colonel
Henry, trying to steer him clear of hostile territory.
At this point in time, back in the cockpit, Colonel Henry's situation had worsened. He had lost his ability to see colors, and being that many of the U-2's computer navigation systems are color based, had resorted to piloting the plane manually.
"By that time I was slumped over with my head against the side of the cabin," Colonel Henry said. "I didn't even have the situational awareness to steer myself by compass."
With about an hour left to go before coming home, Colonel Russell started running the almost unconscious pilot through the descent process.
"I went to find the gear handle to put my wheels down and it was gone," Colonel Henry said.
The handle wasn't actually gone, but was hidden in a blind spot the colonel had developed as a side effect of the DCS. Eventually he found the gear, but it wasn't long until near disaster struck again.
"At this point I was at about 16,000 feet," Colonel Henry said. "I got the air speed high alarm. I could see the red light, so I turned the engine to idle to let the speed bleed off."
Not long after cutting his engine back, the jet went into a full stall, sending the colonel on a death roll at 16,000 feet. Just when things were looking like the colonel's flight would end in a fire ball, two Mirage fighter jets came through the clouds to the colonel's rescue.
"They flew right over me, which I thought was really cool at the time," Colonel Henry said.
The sudden jolt of the Mirages flying over his jet allowed the colonel to gain a moment of clarity and save himself from certain death. Cranking the engine back up, his next order from Colonel Russell was to follow the Mirages. The fighters lead him to the flight line, but then it became a matter of getting him to land.
"I don't remember anything, but I guess for about 45 minutes I flew around the air field following the Mirages," Colonel Henry said.
Coming in at a speed of only 80 MPH alongside the U-2, the fighters were forced to use a very dangerous maneuver known as a saber dance to guide the colonel to the run way. Not yet understanding he was supposed to land however, he followed the mirages when they departed from the run way.
"While all this is going on, my mobile was four wheeling it through the sand dunes," Colonel Henry said. "Everybody's screaming at me, they thought the airplane was going to fall apart, telling me to eject. Everybody on the sides thought I was going to crash."
After taking some very close approaches, with his wings coming as close to four feet from the ground, according to those who witnessed the fearful event from the ground, the colonel finally received the message he needed to make him aware of the situation that was unfolding.
"I told him you had better get your act together and fly the best pattern of your life, because you're either going to fly the best pattern of your life or the last pattern of your life," Colonel Russell said. "I think that kind of gave him the moment of clarity to come out of it and pull it off."
With his last bit of clarity, a U-2 almost out of gas, and now nearing sunset, the colonel did what he had been trained to do, land the plane.
"Of all the things to remember, I turned the landing light on," he said. "I just tried to concentrate on the best pattern I could do, and somehow landed on the center line."
"It's miraculous that in his situation, having about half his vision and color gone he was able to land the plane on the center line with wings level," Colonel Russell said.
As soon as the colonel landed, emergency response vehicles and U-2 specialists came rushing to his aid.
It took eight people total to pull the colonel out of the cockpit, after which he was put on a stretcher and rushed by helicopter to the nearest decompression chamber, which was about 45 minutes away.
"I can remember them taking me to the helicopter, and the wind feeling good," he said. "I must have fallen asleep because next thing I knew I was at the chamber."
After going through what the colonel described as the "decompression chamber of horrors," it was still a long road to full recovery.
"When I finally woke up I felt like I stunk and wanted to shave and take a shower," he said. "They took me over to the shower, and I walked right in with my clothes on. I was like a little kid, they had to dress me."
After a couple sessions in the decompression chamber, the colonel was well enough to travel to a nearby hospital, where he was tested for brain damage. He had only sustained minor damage to his brain, however the doctors informed him that by the time he landed he was on the verge of total cardiovascular collapse.
Now back at Beale, and about six months since the incident, the colonel still remembers that day very well. He says his mind has changed on a couple things since that day, however one thing that hasn't is his attitude on the importance of integrity, training and doing the job right.
"The only thing that saved me was training," Colonel Henry said. "Every time I fly, I fly the emergency patterns over and over. I was doing the whole thing by feel in the end, which only comes by doing things the same way over and over. I wonder, if I had done just one less set of patterns, would I be here today?"
Only with rigorous training was the colonel able to bring his plane down while on the verge of death, however it was also thanks to the brave men and women who helped bring him down safely.
"It's still a pretty emotional experience even after all this time," he said. "I've told this story I don't know how many times. I really want to emphasize that it was the people who work on that aircraft, the guys in the mobile, the air boss, crew criefs, the flight doctors and others -- they saved my life, they're my heroes."
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