He Was Burned Beyond Recognition in Vietnam, Then Flew the Fastest Jet Ever Built

Brian Shul Outran Missiles at Mach 3.5

In April 1986, Major Brian Shul flew an SR-71 Blackbird over Libya at more than 2,100 miles per hour. Libyan missile sites locked onto his aircraft.

The missiles were faster than his jet.

Shul pushed the throttles forward anyway, accelerating past the plane’s safety limits until he hit Mach 3.5, faster than a rifle bullet, and left the missiles detonating in his wake.

Twelve years earlier, doctors had told him he would never fly again. He had been burned over half his body in a jungle crash and spent a year in hospitals.

But Shul made it back to the cockpit, and what he did over Libya that day became one of the most legendary flights in aviation history.

Libyan Radar Sites Lock On

On April 16, 1986, SR-71 #64-17960 entered Libyan airspace at 2,125 mph to photograph targets struck by American bombers two days earlier.

Major Brian Shul was at the controls. His reconnaissance systems officer, Major Walt Watson, sat behind him monitoring the electronics.

As they neared the end of their sweeps, Watson started receiving launch indications from Libyan surface-to-air missile sites below.

The signals meant Libyan SA-2 and SA-4 missiles, capable of Mach 5, were tracking them. Shul had seconds to decide what to do.

Gaddafi’s Line of Death

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had declared a “line of death” across the Gulf of Sidra, threatening to shoot down any intruder who crossed it.

The territorial claim had sparked confrontations with the U.S. Navy earlier that year, when American planes flew over the gulf and Libyan forces fired on them.

Gaddafi was maintaining some 22 terrorist camps in Libya at the time.

Tensions between the two countries had been building for months. Now Shul was flying directly through the airspace Gaddafi had sworn to defend.

A Berlin Disco Bombing Started It

On April 5, 1986, a bomb exploded inside the La Belle discotheque in West Berlin, killing two American soldiers and a Turkish woman and injuring 229 others.

The nightclub was popular with U.S. servicemen stationed in Germany.

The Reagan administration cited intercepted communications between the Libyan embassy in East Berlin and Tripoli as proof of Libyan involvement.

Nine days later, Reagan ordered airstrikes on Tripoli and Benghazi. The operation was called El Dorado Canyon.

The Blackbird Gets Called In

The intelligence-gathering capabilities of the British-based SR-71s were called upon to provide post-strike bomb damage assessment.

Shul and Watson launched from RAF Mildenhall in England, refueled three times over the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and headed toward North Africa.

Shul was the only SR-71 pilot to fly three missions in three consecutive days during the Libyan crisis, providing key intelligence photos to President Reagan.

Their job was to see what the bombs had hit and what they had missed.

Shot Down Over Cambodia

Brian Shul’s path to the SR-71 started with a crash that should have killed him.

In 1973, his T-28 Trojan was shot down near the Cambodian border while he was flying close air support missions with Air America.

He couldn’t eject. Unable to get out, Shul crash-landed into the jungle and suffered severe burns in the ensuing fireball.

Two American soldiers pulled him from the wreckage.

He lay hidden in the brush as enemy patrols searched for him, unsure if what he was seeing was real or a hallucination from his injuries.

Burned Beyond Recognition

More than half of Shul’s body had been badly burned. He spent several months in military hospitals enduring treatment more painful than the flames.

At one point he weighed just 119 pounds, down from 176. During the following year, he underwent 15 major operations and countless hours of physical therapy.

The pain was constant. Shul later said he begged God to let him die because he wasn’t strong enough to keep going.

Then one day, lying in bed, he heard children playing soccer outside the hospital window.

He Refused to Stay Grounded

Doctors told him he was lucky to be alive, but he would never fly again.

Shul refused to accept it. He kept pushing through physical therapy, focused on one goal: passing an Air Force flight physical.

Only two days after his release from the hospital, he passed his flight physical and was returned to active flying duty.

He went on to fly the A-7, became one of the first operational A-10 pilots in the Air Force, and eventually became an instructor at the Fighter Lead-In School.

Selected for the SR-71

For his final assignment, Shul volunteered for and was selected to fly the SR-71.

This assignment required an astronaut-type physical just to qualify, and Shul passed with no waivers. Only 93 Air Force pilots ever flew the Blackbird.

When Shul applied, he was told his medical records would probably disqualify him. He applied anyway, figuring the worst they could do was say no.

He scored among the highest ever on the flight exam. The man doctors said would never fly again was now flying the fastest jet ever built.

Throttles Against the Stops

Over Libya, with missiles rising toward him, Shul made a decision.

He quickly increased speed, calculating the time it would take for the missiles to reach his altitude, and bet their lives on the plane’s performance.

The SR-71’s official speed limit was Mach 3.2. Shul pushed past it. The Mach eased to 3.5 as they crested 80,000 feet.

Watson suggested he pull back. Shul looked down and realized he still had the throttles pressed all the way forward.

They were flying a mile every 1. 6 seconds.

Mach 3.5 Over Tripoli

They hit the turn, and Shul felt relief as the nose swung away from Libyan airspace.

Screaming past Tripoli, their speed continued to rise, and the Blackbird laid down a parting sonic boom.

The missiles never caught them. In its entire career, the SR-71 outran nearly 4,000 missiles without ever taking a scratch from enemy fire.

No Blackbird was ever shot down. Shul and Watson were so fast that day they overran their refueling tanker waiting over Gibraltar.

Shul’s Final Flight

After 20 years and 5,000 hours in fighter jets, Shul retired from the Air Force in 1990.

He wrote books about the Blackbird, opened a photography studio in California, and spent decades telling his story at aviation events.

On May 20, 2023, Shul collapsed just after giving his famous SR-71 presentation for an audience in Reno, Nevada.

He died at 75, moments after finishing the talk he had given hundreds of times.

The man who survived a jungle crash, 15 surgeries, and Libyan missiles spent his last breath doing what he loved: sharing the story of the fastest jet ever built.

Visiting Blackbird Airpark, California

Blackbird Airpark is located at 2503 E Avenue P in Palmdale, California.

It’s the only place in the world where you can see the SR-71 displayed alongside its predecessor, the A-12, plus the once-secret D-21 drone and the last surviving U-2D.

The park is open Friday through Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Admission is free. The nearby Joe Davies Heritage Airpark has additional military aircraft on display.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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