Originally Posted by
ShyTorque
There was a great set of pics, taken with a motor drive, of the vertically falling and nose-less Mig, just before it took the tailplane off a Belgian C-130. In one of the pics, there were three aircrew standing on the fuselage, below the fireball. In the next pic there were only two, then one, then none, as they all jumped off! One of them, a female crewmember, was later rescued as she was hanging off the HF aerial cable on the side of the Herc!
I know which photos you mean. I was shown them by one of the crewmembers a few weeks later and I can still remember the chills that the story and photos produced. In the chaos one of the crew dropped to the ground (left side of fuselage) and turned left, into the fireball! Within seconds he realised the mistake, pulled his flightsuit up to cover his head and turned around. No damage whatsoever, but it could have been a lot worse.