The scene inside the flight deck was one of absolute pandemonium. Flight attendant Nigel Ogden, who had been entering the cockpit to offer the pilots a beverage, witnessed the captain disappear into the sky. Acting on pure, unadulterated instinct, Ogden lunged forward and grabbed Lancaster’s legs just before they slipped entirely through the window frame. Had it not been for Ogden’s lightning-fast reflexes, Lancaster would have been lost to the atmosphere instantly. For the next twenty minutes, Ogden became a human anchor, his muscles screaming under the strain as the sub-zero gale-force winds tried to tear the captain from his grasp.
Outside, the conditions were unsurvivable by any traditional medical standard. At 17,000 feet, the air is thin and dangerously low in oxygen. The temperature was approximately -17°C, made exponentially worse by a wind chill factor that could freeze skin in seconds. Lancaster was being battered against the side of the plane, his eyes wide and unblinking, his body subjected to a pummeling force that the crew believed had already killed him. Inside the cockpit, the door had been blown inward, blocking the throttle controls and filling the space with a deafening roar and swirling debris. Papers, manuals, and loose equipment whipped through the air like shrapnel.Continue reading…
