The 23-millimeter shells from the Chinese Sukhoi-33’s gun attack stitched a single line of inch-wide holes along the upper fuselage of the Megafortress beginning just aft of the trailing edge of the right wing, straight up and across the crew compartment. The steel shells punctured the avionics “canoe” on the fuselage just before tearing into the aft and center body fuel tanks, causing a terrific explosion. The shells continued through the crew compartment, piercing Emil Vikram’s ejection seat and shredding his head, body, instrument panel, and left-side fuselage area, missing McLanahan and Elliott by only inches. A scream erupted from McLanahan’s lips as he watched his partner get blown to pieces right before his eyes. Vikram’s chest looked as ragged and raw as an old scarecrow — thankfully, the pieces of his helmet hid his decimated head. Blood spattered against the forward crew compartment and left-side cockpit windows just before the left windows disintegrated. The crew cabin explosively decompressed, creating a sudden solid fog in the cockpit, then a virtual hurricane of thundering wind and violent sound. Brad Elliott was thrown to the right as his head and upper torso took the entire brunt of the hurricane-force winds ripping through the blasted left cockpit windows.
Through her screams of terror and shock, copilot Major Nancy Cheshire’s training took over. She was battered by the hurricane-force slipstream and shocked by the explosions ripping through her plane, but she managed to focus on her one and only priority: flying the airplane. Everything else had to wait. Still two hundred feet above the South China Sea, the EB-52 Megafortress was still flying and still accelerating, so she held on to those two facts with every ounce of her skill, experience, and strength. The wings were still attached, three of the plane’s four engines were still running and still producing smash, and they hadn’t hit the rock-solid ocean yet — and it was her job to keep it that way.
“Guard your throttles!” she heard a voice thunder. Just as she laid her hands on the throttle quadrant, Patrick McLanahan reached across the center console and began unbuckling Elliott’s lap belt and parachute harness straps. “You okay, Nancy?” McLanahan shouted over the wind- blast.
“Yes!” she shouted back. She didn’t dare take her eyes off her instruments, but out of the corner of her eyes she saw McLanahan detach Elliott from his ejection seat, drag him out of the pilot’s seat, lay him down on the deck between the pilot’s seats and instrument console, hook up his oxygen mask and interphone cord, turn his regulator to oxygen 100 %, and begin checking his wounds.
“How is he, Patrick?” Cheshire asked.
“He looks okay,” McLanahan replied. “A few cuts on the left side of his face and shoulders.” He quickly wrapped bandages from a first-aid kit around the worst-looking wounds. Thankfully McLanahan had thought to detach the man from his seat rather than simply undo his shoulder straps, because now Elliott had a parachute on and at least had a fighting chance to eject or do a manual bailout if they got hit. “How are you doing up there?”
“I feel like I’m suddenly flying an ambulance plane rather than a bomber. ”
“Can the wisecracks, co,” McLanahan snapped — but he was happy that Nancy Cheshire was still cracking wise. If she was too quiet or too serious, it was an indication they were in serious trouble! Satisfied that Elliott was breathing on his own and secured the best he could be, he crawled back into his seat and called up the aircraft systems status page on his supercockpit display. “Number four’s shut down, no further fire indications,” he announced, acting as copilot while his only other surviving crew member flew the plane. “Successful fuel system transfer, successful hydraulic and electrical shunts. Auto transferring fuel from the fuselage and mains to the wings, because I think we’re leaking fuel.”
“We’re on the deck at mil power and four hundred knots, and I think that’s all we’re going to get out of her,” Cheshire added. “We’ve lost the left-side windscreen and all of the left-side controls and indicators. At least it’s warm out there.”
“Defense is tits-up,” McLanahan reported after doing a status check on the defensive suite. “All weapons went into emergency safety shutdown with the engine fire. I’m going to reset everything. Radar should be up in ninety seconds. If we still have weapons, they’ll be up in two minutes. Nav systems successfully reset and reloaded. All weapons went into emergency safety shutdown.”
“What about those fighters out there, Muck?” Cheshire asked.
“If we can see him and track him on the attack radar, there’s a chance,” McLanahan said as he started to check his own equipment. But a few seconds later: “I’ve got no-go lights on all internal and external weapons, Nance — they might’ve been hit by a bullet or damaged by the fire. Looks like we got squat. Left turn heading zero-four-five, co. We’re heading right for Taiwan. If we got any help out there, that’s where they’ll be. I’ll do another restart, but I think my stuff is dead.”
“Any contact with the Taiwanese air force?” Cheshire asked on interphone.
McLanahan tried all the radios. “Negative,” he responded. “The electromagnetic pulse from the nuclear explosions shut down all the radios. Nothing’s getting through.”
“We won’t make it,” Cheshire said. “That Chinese fighter is probably lining up on us right now. Without weapons or countermeasures, he can slice us up at his leisure.”
“I’ll jettison the wing weapons pods so we can get max performance,” McLanahan said. Moments after punching off both wing pylons: “Hey, I’ve got a green light on the bomb-bay Striker missiles! The wing weapons pods must’ve been damaged from the explosion on the number four engine — jettisoning the bad missiles cleared the continuity faults on all the other missiles. But there’s still no way we’re going to hit a fighter with a three-thousand-pound Striker missile…” But that didn’t stop him from repowering the Striker missile rotary launcher and getting the eight remaining missiles on-line.
“Radar’s up!” McLanahan shouted over the screaming windblast coming through the Megafortress’s shattered left windows. “Bandit six o’clock, five miles!”
“Nail him! ” Cheshire shouted on interphone. “Launch the Strikers! ”
“Got him!” McLanahan shouted. He touched the fighter symbol on his supercockpit display, which designated the target, then hit the control stud on his trackball pad and spoke, “Launch commit Striker.”
CAUTION, NO AIR-TO-AIR weapons available, the attack computer responded.
“Override that caution,” McLanahan ordered the computer. “Launch commit Striker.”
WARNING, WEAPON SELECTION OVERRIDE, WARNING, WEAPON PERFORMANCE HAZARDOUS, RECOMMEND LAUNCH ABORT… RECOMMEND LAUNCH ABORT…
Just then, they felt the Megafortress’s tail slide to one side, followed by a heavy buffeting. “Jesus, I think we’re hit! ” Cheshire shouted.
“Launch,” McLanahan ordered.
WARNING, LAUNCH COMMIT STRIKER, BOMB DOORS OPENING.
“Wings level!” McLanahan shouted. “Gimme a slight climb.” Cheshire raised the nose and leveled the wings. As she did so, she felt the rumble of the aft set of bomb-bay doors swinging up into the bomb bay, and a Striker missile was ejected into the slipstream. The missile dropped two hundred feet, wobbily stabilized itself, then ignited its first- stage rocket motor. Just as the bomb doors slid closed, another electrical spike drove through the EB-52’s electrical system, sending the good systems back into reset.