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Subject: Re: Off topic - Fatality (was: Bubble horizon)
From: Robert Eno (enoid@XXX.XXX)
Date: Tue Dec 17 2002 - 20:55:11 EST
Brian,
This sounds like about the time this incident happened at Frobisher Bay.
Does the report indicate where they landed?
Robert
----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Whatcott <betwys@XXX.XXX>
To: <NAVIGATION-L@XXX.XXX>
Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 7:46 PM
Subject: Off topic - Fatality (was: Bubble horizon)
> Here is the most informed background on this fatality, that I have
> been able to find:
>
> In November 1988, Master Sergeant James Borland, a boom operator
> whose principal task it was to fly the fueling boom onto a receiver
> airplane when refueling, was preparing to make a celestial observation.
> This was the standard practice for that position on a trans-Atlantic run.
> (The boom took the sights, and the nav did the sight reductions. )
>
> One of two sighting windows then fitted to KC135-E airplanes
> broke free, thought to be due to corrosion at the seal.
> These overhead windows were located about six feet aft of the
> pilots' position, near the boom operators seat.
>
> Sgt Borland's head and arm were lifted clear outside the aperture
> where the force of the partial ejection into the high speed, thin air
> killed him. His intact corpse was recovered when the aircraft
> descended to a viable height.
>
> James served with the MARCH Air Force Reserves.
> The sighting windows on the KC135 were then deemed
> unnecessary, and replaced with a sandwich of plates to
> eliminate this risk.
>
> Brian Whatcott
>
> At 12:18 AM 12/17/02, Robert Eno, you wrote:
> >P.S.
> >
> >I too, have heard about navigators getting sucked out of the perspex
domes
> >that used to be affixed to aircraft. The stories were always gruesome and
> >usually involved headless navigators. 'nuff said on that. Matter of
fact,
> >an aircrew member was supposedly killed in about 1989 or thereabouts
because
> >he got sucked out the dome. The aircraft ended up emergency landing in
> >Frobisher Bay. That was the story anyway. It happened too long ago for me
to
> >verify it.
> >
> >Robert
>
> >Paul Hirose, you said:
> >Robert
> > > KC-135s used to have flat windows on top of the plane near the bubble
> > > sextant port. I heard they were replaced with metal plates after an
> > > accident in the 80s (?) in which a nav got sucked out to his death.
> > > Such stories are often apocryphal, but there may be some truth to this
> > > one. The one -135 I worked on in my career, in the 1990s, did have the
> > > window openings plated over. In fact, I heard the story of the nav
> > > from one of the crew chiefs on that bird, after he noticed me playing
> > > with the periscopic sextant. What a way to die.
> > >
> > >
>
> Brian Whatcott
> Altus OK Eureka!
>
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