“Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. Slash one-one on GUARD. Still with you. Total electrical failure. Switching squadron tac.” Wilson only had to wait a few seconds for an answer, but it felt much longer as he struggled to fly his stricken jet toward the water.
“Roger, Slash one-one. Switching!” Wilson didn’t recognize the voice — maybe it was DCAG who, by his seniority, would run the CSAR as on-scene commander. But Wilson didn’t wait. He switched to A and began to punch in the squadron tactical frequency.
Without warning, his nose pitched up.
Wilson pushed the stick forward. Nothing! As the nose continued to rise higher and higher, he saw nothing ahead of him but the band of stars making up the Milky Way. He deflected the stick left. Nothing! In a panic, he jerked it back to the right. The stick was dead in his hand.
Now the jet, with its nose parked high, was in danger of stalling due to lack of airflow over the wings. With a burst of adrenalin, and his mind in overdrive, Wilson stomped on the left rudder pedal. The Hornet obeyed and yawed left, the nose knuckling down to the horizon. As the airplane fell through on its side, Wilson stomped on the right rudder to try and hold the nose steady in a shallow climb toward the coast. Although it was sluggish, the nose responded, and Wilson pulled the left throttle out of burner to hold the attitude. How he wished he could lose those bombs and tanks weighing down his jet!
The airplane rolled off to the right and full left rudder did not stop it, so he helped it along with full right rudder. When his jet rolled inverted and nose down, Wilson stood on the right rudder and reengaged the left blower to recover. The nose came back through to the horizon, and Wilson released the controls. He was heading toward another storm that sat off the port along the coast. He wasn’t sure he could roll away from it and hoped to stagger past using only rudder and differential power on his one operating engine.
With no pitch control, he had to keep the jet rolling, and with each roll he lost altitude. He was now in the low teens making progress toward the coast, and the storm.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Mark “Kid” Webb, the wide-eyed nugget flying Slash 34, Tail-End-Charlie, had a visual on Commander Wilson in Slash 11.
Low and to his left, he picked up the gray planform of a Hornet, lights out, rolling toward the coast. He figured the jet had to be Skipper Wilson, who the lead Slash division had reporting missing before the skipper came up on GUARD. Five miles from feet wet was good news, but it appeared the stricken aircraft was flying into a thunderstorm off to the north. The Slashes were clear of the heavy AAA over San Ramón, and the radar warning gear had also quieted down. He kept his eyes on the aircraft that was rolling in such an unusual manner. He noticed a small light on it — aft of the wing line from what he could tell — and sang out to the others.
“Slash three-four has a visual on a Hornet, midnight. Heading east into that cell north of us.”
“Kid, where away?” responded his lead in Slash 33.
“About my nine o’clock low, two miles. Looks like angels twelve.”
Eyes in the strike aircraft snapped north toward the cell, but only Kid in Slash 34 was close enough to see the jet. DCAG jumped in.
“Stay padlocked on him, Slash three-four. Are you both feet wet?”
“Almost… He’s rolling toward the storm, and he may be on fire!”
“Stay with him, and say your state.”
“Slash three-four is seven-point-five.”
“Three-three is seven-seven.”
With fewer than 8,000 pounds of fuel and the tanker nearly 200 miles away — through more convective weather — the Hornets didn’t have much time to stay. And, even if the runways at San Ramón were out of action, the FAV could have Vipers inbound from dispersal fields, even Flankers from Caracas.
However, they would not abandon one of their own just yet.
Wilson was heading toward the thunderstorm in his path, one that was strengthening and forming an anvil top high above him. The storm was the least of his worries.
As he approached the safety of the coast, still using the rudder to control his jet, the glow from his right side was becoming more pronounced. Wilson knew he was on fire. The jet could explode any minute. He could get out now with a chance to live — and be captured. The storm was in his path, but it was worth entering if it got him feet wet into the Columbus Channel. Although he had no CSAR to pick him up, he had a better chance at rescue in the water. Since two or three more rolls should get him there, he prayed his dying jet could hold on a bit longer.
Knowing he would have to get out soon, Wilson ripped the goggles off his helmet and dropped them by his feet. When, with both hands, he began to stow his radio in his vest pouch, he was thrown up against the left side of the cockpit by an explosion from behind. The tearing of metal caused the jet to roll hard right. The negative G-force pinned his hands up, and the radio flew away and slid down to the windscreen. He had to get out now, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t reach down to the handle.
Wilson was out of his seat from the negative G, hanging in his straps as Firebird 301 rolled faster and faster as it picked up speed. Unknown lights spun in front of him and blood rushed to his head. Wilson tried to push off the top of the canopy with his left arm but the force was too great. Shocked that he could not move, he struggled and cried for help even though he knew there was no one in his cockpit. He was pinned, helpless, in a corkscrewing jet with airspeed building.
Pushed up against the canopy, Wilson could not move from his position. With all his might, he tried to reach down to the handle — and couldn’t! He began to panic, whimpering, straining, praying, fighting for life. Help me! The violent spinning was causing him to choke, and he feared he would pass out any moment.
Jim Wilson’s life flashed before him. Hitting a home run during a boyhood baseball game. Mary holding newborn Derrick. Weed sitting next to him on a liberty boat. All of it flashed by in an instant. The sharp point of a single coastal light below became a blur. Pinned…. Helpless… .
Wilson gave up struggling. It was going to happen. It would be painless. No chance. Even if he could reach the handle, an ejection would probably kill him. Why fight anymore? He had given it a good fight. But South America… hadn’t thought it would end here.
Then, deep inside his soul, a raging defiance burst forth, and with it a volcanic explosion of superhuman strength he didn’t know he possessed. He tensed his body, closed his eyes tight, and bellowed.