As the Blackbird entered the hangar, it encountered water on the ground, which had mixed with the SR-71’s specialized JP-7 fuel. Together, the two liquids created an extremely slippery surface
The SR-71 Mach 3+ spy plane, which was developed from the Lockheed A-12 and YF-12A aircraft, had its inaugural flight on December 22, 1964. The first operational aircraft was handed over to the 4200th (later known as the 9th) Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base in California in January 1966.
Over its almost 24-year span of service, the SR-71 held the title of the fastest and highest-flying operational aircraft globally. At an altitude of 80,000 feet, it could survey 100,000 square miles of the Earth’s surface per hour.
Colonel (ret.) Richard Graham, an author of multiple books on the SR-71 Blackbird, piloted this aircraft for seven years, collecting 756 hours in the cockpit of this extraordinary Mach 3+ jet. He also shared some of his remarkable experiences with BBC Future regarding the world’s fastest plane.
One particular story involved an SR-71’s close call with a slip-and-slide mishap at Kadena Air Base located in Okinawa, Japan.
Japan is famous for its sudden and intense rainstorms, and Okinawa frequently experiences these conditions. Rain presents a specific risk to all aircraft—primarily due to the reduction in visibility—but one particular SR-71 faced an especially unfortunate consequence during its return from a mission while taxiing into a hangar. As the aircraft moved into the hangar, it came across water on the ground, which had blended with the specialized JP-7 fuel used by the SR-71. This combination resulted in a highly slippery ground surface, which hindered the Blackbird’s wheels from obtaining any traction on the hangar’s floor.
Graham recalls,
‘Rainstorms could be deadly: “In Okinawa, unfortunately, we had a lot of rainstorms that just came out of nowhere. And when you mix JP-7 with a little bit of rain, it gets very, very slippery on the ground. An SR-71 was coming back from a mission. He was coming back into the hangar. Don [Don Emmons, Graham’s navigator] and I were on backup duty, so we were in the hangar. As he came into the hangar, he slowed down; he’s right on the centerline… and we notice his brakes are locked up, the wheels aren’t rotating anymore, and he’s still going through the hangar, sliding. And you would not believe how many maintenance people realized immediately something was wrong with this airplane. We had maintenance guys throwing chocks under the wheel, but it kept on moving. Don and I were grabbing onto the wingtip to try and stop it. People were grabbing every part of the airplane as they realized it was an emergency. It was like a dream in slow motion as this airplane just went through the hangar. And it stopped when the main wheels just caught the other side of the hangar onto the concrete. And its pitot tube, the tube at the front, came about a foot from ramming a curved blast deflector we have for jet engines.”’
Check out Habubrats SR-71 and Born into the Wilde Blue Yonder Facebook pages for further Blackbird photos and stories.
Photo by U.S. Air Force and Peter Grassberger Own Work via Wikipedia
