Milt Windler, NASA flight director who helped save Apollo 13, dies at 94

Milt Windler, a NASA flight director who coordinated the round-the-clock effort to return the Apollo 13 crew safely to Earth in 1970, has died at 94.

A brief notice posted online said Windler died on Thursday surrounded by his family.

Windler’s NASA career

NASA appointed Windler as a flight director in 1968 after he worked on recovery operations for the Mercury and Gemini programs. He led flight-controller shifts during Apollo 8’s first circumlunar flight and Apollo 10’s lunar-landing rehearsal.

Windler later led shifts for the Apollo 12, Apollo 14 and Apollo 15 landings—the second, third and fourth Moon landings. He also served as flight director for all three crewed missions to the United States’ first space station, Skylab.

“Maroon Flight” and Apollo 8

Windler was the seventh person appointed as a flight director and one of the first two selected from outside the flight-operations team. Flight directors chose names for their teams, and Windler’s became “Maroon Flight.”

On his first mission at the flight director’s console, Windler worked the third shift. During that shift, Apollo 8 carried out the trans-lunar injection burn that sent Frank Borman, Bill Anders and Jim Lovell toward the first mission to orbit people around the Moon.