Lieutenant Colonel William Henry Rankin was the only known 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. He was flying an F-8 Crusader jet fighter over a cumulonimbus cloud when the engine failed, forcing him to eject and parachute into the cloud. Lieutenant Colonel Rankin wrote a book about his experience, "The Man Who Rode the Thunder".Lieutenant Colonel William Henry Rankin was the only known 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. He was flying an F-8 Crusader jet fighter over a cumulonimbus cloud when the engine failed, forcing him to eject and parachute into the cloud. Lieutenant Colonel Rankin wrote a book about his experience, "The Man Who Rode the Thunder"....more