Chicken Little Is Right by Tom Donnelly & Gary Schmitt

On an early November day in the skies over southern Indiana, Maj. Steve Stilwell of the Missouri Air National Guard's 131st Fighter Wing was honing his air-to-air combat skills. As he threw his F-15 into a turn, he stressed his big Eagle at two to three times the force of gravity, a relatively gentle maneuver in the world of dogfighting. But it proved to be more than the 27-year-old fighter could handle: It began to shake violently, paralyzing Stilwell's left arm, and then the fuselage shattered just behind the cockpit. As the rear bulk of the plane fell away, Stilwell shot forward. "I kept telling myself: I gotta get out, I gotta get out," Stilwell remembered to the St. Louis Post Dispatch. "I found the ejection handle. .  .  . I am a little concerned why a plane would break in half."

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