While Yeager set an incredible record for humanity in 1947, it wasn’t until 1953 that he reached his personal best for fastest speed. That year, Yeager had already distinguished himself as the first American to fly a Soviet MiG fighter brought by a North Korean defector(via Biography). In December, he took flight in a newer Bell rocket plane and found himself racing across the winter California sky at Mach 2.44, a speed of around 1,650 mph (via chuckyeager). However, this is where everything went horribly wrong, as Yeager began to lose control of the plane at this speed and went into a spin from which he was just barely able to recover.

The same couldn’t be said years later in 1963 when he tested an experimental version of the NF-104 interceptor jet, the first American jet fighter capable of Mach 2 (indirectly thanks to data from his flights). The one Yeager piloted on this occasion had a rocket engine attached to it for a better climb rate. It indeed allowed for an impressively quick ascent, but went into a stall and could not be recovered. Yeager was forced to eject. According to Business Insider, while Yeager ultimately survived, the rocket fuel he encountered as he bailed from the plane left him severely burned and bed-ridden for weeks.