Forty minutes in a stormSourced
He left a failing aircraft and entered a thundercloud
In 1959, US pilot William Rankin ejected after his aircraft’s engine failed. His parachute opened inside a thunderstorm, where updrafts kept him aloft. Accounts put the time before he reached the ground at about forty minutes. He survived and wrote a book about the experience.
Leaving the aircraft did not mean escaping the weather.
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William Rankin · Wikimedia contributors
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Reviewed: 2026-10-05