Hoot Gibson's Hangar Vodcast/Podcast S1 E2

"STS 27 was my was my third launch and it was only the second launch after the Challenger accident. Well, I will never forget, we maneuvered the arm and Mike Mullane was my boom arm operator. So he moved the arm over there and we brought up the television image of the right wing. And I looked at what I was seeing and I said to myself, we are going to die." -Hoot Gibson.

Thirty-Five years ago, at 9:30 a.m. EST on 2 December 1988, Atlantis rocketed into crystal-blue Florida skies to begin the second shuttle mission in the wake of the Challenger tragedy. Two months earlier, her sister Discovery had brought the fleet back to active service and the task of the five STS-27 astronauts—Commander Robert “Hoot” Gibson, Pilot Guy Gardner and Mission Specialists Mike Mullane, Jerry Ross and Bill Shepherd—was to deploy a classified payload on behalf of the Department of Defense. Although that objective apparently proceeded without significant incident, the mysterious flight of STS-27 earned a place in the history books, when the hands of fate unexpectedly turned against the astronauts and brought them within a hair’s breadth of disaster.

Hoot’s Hangar, aviation’s premier podcast, hosted by America’s premier aviator, Hoot Gibson. 

Don’t miss a single episode. Exclusively on Air2AirTV.com and lived on all top podcast directories: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, Alexa, Overcast, PocketCast, Castro, Castbox, and Podchaser.

You can also download the audio podcast file. It will appear under the Resources tab on the video player.

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