Liberty Bell 7: The Suborbital Mercury Flight of Virgil I. Grissom (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration) by Colin Burgess

Author:Colin Burgess [Burgess, Colin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Published: 2014-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

A SINKING SPACECRAFT

Unaware that Grissom was struggling to stay afloat in the ocean swells of three to six feet amplitude, Jim Lewis called upon all his flying skills and the performance of his helicopter to attempt to salvage the sinking spacecraft. He and co-pilot Reinhard had seen the hatch blow off prematurely, and as Lewis watched in alarm “it hit the water, skipped once and sank when it hit the second time.” He then related what happened next.

“I was not worried about Gus being in the water because we had trained on these procedures at Langley AFB and the Space Task Group and we knew the astronauts floated very well in their suits – they were sealed and had a neck dam at the top to prevent any water ingress. At that point we no longer had communication, so there was no way for any of us to know there was an open port in his suit.

“My last call to Gus before the hatch blew was that I was ‘turning base’. That meant I was downwind and had to do a 180-degree turn into the wind and complete the approach over a distance of one hundred feet or more to get there. We saw the hatch blow, which means that we had completed the turn but still hadn’t closed the distance.”

“My plan at that point was to have my co-pilot cut the HF antenna … and try and snag the capsule before it sank. There was probably a minute or less from the time the hatch blew until the capsule disappeared below the surface.

“I could see Gus in the water, trying to help in the recovery process. He later said he wanted to help my co-pilot make the connection between the aircraft and capsule if he could, so he was close by. It turned out he didn’t need to help [and] he did not look like he was in distress during the time I could see him, and he looked intent on doing what had to be done – but never did he look angry. Anger is a wasted emotion at such times, and pilots are trained to be resourceful, efficient, skilled, and to get the job done, whatever it is.

“I had to put the wheels in the water – the aircraft wasn’t designed for this – after my co-pilot cut the antenna so he could reach the recovery bale on top of the capsule. By the time he had made the connection between the helicopter recovery line and the capsule recovery loop, the top of Liberty Bell 7 had actually disappeared below the surface. Once the hookup was made I could no longer see the capsule because it was directly below the aircraft. I began attempting to lift it out of the water at that point, although I knew that the combined weight of the capsule and water was more than the [helicopter’s] lifting capacity.”16

According to rehearsed procedures, Reinhard’s next action was to lower a horse-collar hoist for Gus to climb into, so that they could pull him up into the helicopter.

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