An unexplained cockpit fire left newly-qualified pilot Jamie Hull with a terrible choice – remain in his burning plane or take hsi chances and jump without a parachute
A man who found himself trapped in a blazing plane hundreds of feet in the air has shared how he took the terrifying decision to jump.
Jamie Hull is the kind of man that’s always looking for the next challenge, and at 32 decided to study for his private pilot’s licence. But the horrific accident that caused catastrophic injuries left him lying yards from his burning aircraft, fully expecting to die.
The former SAS trooper told the Sail Away podcast that as he lay there he went through a dramatic range of emotions. “I went through three stages of mental focus,” he said.
“The first reaction in my mind was anger. I was angry about what had just happened and the fact that there was nothing I could do about it – the damage was done. But then immediately there was a switch…you can’t be angry forever in that situation.”
Jamie says that “it takes a huge amount of energy” to stay angry, and he rapidly found himself switching to a state of despair. “I was grieving enough for 10 men,” he recalled. “I was in a bad way and and the grief and the sadness was just flooding out of me. I knew there’s no way my life was ever going to be the same again.”
Finally, Jamie says, he accepted that he was probably going to die there, on that Florida airfield. ”The third switch was resignation,” he added. ”I figured ‘there’s nothing that I can do about this situation whatsoever.’ I resigned myself to the fact that I was about to check out.”
In his dazed and confused state, Jamie took one final – and quite unusual – step. He went on: “I took my shoes and socks off. I tucked everything on neatly to the right hand side of me … I figured this is one journey I’m definitely not going to need shoes and socks for.”
Jamie still doesn’t know exactly what caused the onboard fire that led to the crash. He says he was on a routine practice flight when he suddenly saw flames shooting out of the light aircraft’s engine.
He immediately turned back towards the airfield for an emergency landing, but the increased air pressure as he flew into the wind drove the flames inside the cockpit. “My feet and ankles were lapping with flame,” he recalled.
As the fire intensified, Jamie began to realise that he wouldn’t survive long enough to land the plane, and began to think the unthinkable: jumping out of a moving aircraft.
A light aircraft doesn’t have an ejector seat, and it’s rare for pilots to wear parachutes. Jamie would have to take his chances and hope for a soft landing.
As the aircraft neared the ground, at perhaps 15 or 20 feet, Jamie jumped “like a jackrabbit” out of the cockpit. He says his SAS parachute training stood him in good stead, but it still wasn’t quite enough. He recalled” “I did jump clean, feet and knees together, but the impact was severe when I landed.
“Even though the ground was relatively soft and it absorbed the shock, I was thrust forward in a secondary impact and face-planted the the ground.”
As his consciousness faded, Jamie could see the wreckage of his plane burning some 60 feet away. He was then shaken by a massive explosion as the plane’s fuel tank ignited.
Jamie realised that he was on fire, and rolled in the sharp Florida grass to extinguish the flames – adding a number of nasty cuts to his already horrific injuries.
He explained: “My lower limbs were burning for the longer period. My head and neck and and everything was getting it for a lesser period before I managed to get out and clamber onto the wing and make the jump. But I was 63% over total body surface area third and fourth degree burns.
“Fourth degree means down to the bone,” Jamie said, “so surgeons had a um a very difficult task of trying to save my legs.”
After the accident, in August 2007, Jamie spent six months in a medically-induced coma and a further 18 months in hospital recovering: “The operation tally was 64 operations over the course of seven years,” he says.
Jamie was temporarily down, but not out. His determination has seen him bounce back from life-changing injuries and compete at the inaugural Invictus Games in 2014.
Jamie has also and has taken part in intensive winter sports training icluding Nordic skiing and ice sledge hockey. He has also led expeditions, become a diving course director and gone on to write his story, entitled Life On A Thread.
