Killer at 70,000 Feet | Military Aviation | Air & Space Magazine: Over the next three hours, with Russell’s guidance, Henry managed to steer his U-2 toward a friendly air base in the Middle East. His short-term memory was gone; all he had to rely on was the muscle memory he’d developed as a young trainee. “I could still do basic airmanship stuff,” he says, “you know, push forward on the yoke and the houses get bigger.”
But even simple tasks were getting harder. As Henry neared the runway, Russell told him to put the landing gear down. When he reached for the handle, it wasn’t there. He’d developed several blind spots in his vision, and had to grope around in the area where he knew the handle should be.
“Nothing made any sense,” he says. “I had horns and lights going off, and I go, That means something important—I can’t remember what that light means.”