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William Rankin

Lieutenant Colonel William Henry Rankin (October 16, 1920 – July 6, 2009) was the first person to survive a fall from the top of a cumulonimbus thunderstorm cloud. He was a pilot in the United States Marine Corps and a World War II and Korean War veteran. In 1959, he was flying an F-8 Crusader jet fighter over a cumulonimbus cloud when the engine failed, and he ejected and parachuted into the cloud. Rankin wrote a book about his experience, ''The Man Who Rode the Thunder''. Provided by Wikipedia