Harrowing ride for F-15 pilot

By Doug Moore
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

12/27/2007








Only a few seconds earlier, Maj. Stephen Stilwell had been in the cockpit of an F-15, practicing a dogfighting maneuver with another fighter plane.

But now the Air National Guard pilot found himself on the ground, his left arm lifeless, but still attached. He was alive, but he didn't know how bad his injuries were.

He had managed to eject from the plane using just his right arm. The injuries to his left side happened as he was tossed about in the plane that eventually broke apart and crashed into a fireball 18,000 feet below him.

"I kept telling myself: 'I gotta get out, I gotta get out,'" Stilwell recounted on Wednesday, nearly eight weeks after the Nov. 2 crash in a remote area of Missouri's Dent County. "I found the ejection handle and I'm out."

Full story
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/new...1?OpenDocument

talk about lucky

Can you imagine if he hit the trees with his arm hurt like it was? Not to mention if the F-15 hit houses on the ground? It really could have been a lot worse all around if things happen a little differently.