On March 12, 1940, a Dutch Fokker T-8 twin-engine naval reconnaissance plane, piloted by Lieutenant J.H. Hupkes, encountered a severe thunderstorm over the North Sea while returning from a patrol. As ice built up on the wings and the aircraft began to lose altitude, Hupkes realized he had no choice but to attempt something unprecedented: he would deliberately fly into the top of a cumulus cloud and try to use the updraft to stay airborne. He climbed steeply into the cloud, felt the violent updraft, and emerged — still flying — above the storm. He had no idea of his position. He flew blind for 45 minutes, trusting his compass, until he broke through beneath the clouds near the Dutch coast. He landed safely at De Kooy airfield. The meteorological data from his flight was used by the Dutch meteorological service for decades. Hupkes later became a commercial airline captain. He died in 1997 at age 79.