IVAN CHISOV was a navigator officer on a Soviet Ilyushin IL-4 bomber. In January 1942, his plane was attacked by German fighters from the Luftwaffe and started to crash.
Chisov jumped from the plane at around 7,000 meters, but he chose not to open his parachute right away. His bomber squadron was still under attack, and he knew that German pilots sometimes used parachutes for target practice. He planned to wait until he was below the fighting before opening it.
But because he was so high up and had little oxygen, he passed out before he could pull the cord.
He crashed into a snowy mountain ridge at an estimated speed of 240 km/h, rolling many times and ending up buried under the snow. Amazingly, a nearby cavalry unit saw the air battle and his fall. They rushed to the spot and found him alive, with his parachute still unopened in his pack.
He had a broken spine (but no damage to his spinal cord, so he wasn’t paralyzed) and a fractured pelvis. He was rushed into surgery, and for a month his condition was very serious.
But he recovered fully, returned to the air force, and flew more than 70 missions before the war ended.