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

Milt Windler, a veteran NASA flight director nicknamed "Maroon Flight," has died at 94. He rose to prominence after being named a flight director in 1968 following work on Mercury and Gemini recovery operations, leading shifts for Apollo 8 and 10 and serving on missions Apollo 12, 14 and 15. He was one of the four lead controllers who ran the around‑the‑clock effort to return Apollo 13 after the service module exploded, polling flight controllers to devise engine‑burn options and overseeing improvisations such as the CO2 filter adaptation that kept the crew alive. His teams received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and he earned NASA’s Exceptional Service Medal for those efforts. A lighter anecdote: he and his wife made small "number 1" flannel banners for Apollo 8’s trans‑lunar injection, though they were never displayed.

Windler began as an aeronautical engineer (Virginia Tech, 1954), worked at NACA, served in the Air Force, and moved to Houston as the Manned Space Center formed. After Apollo he directed Skylab shifts and created real‑time “cycle” flight planning to integrate on‑the‑fly science priorities, later contributing to the shuttle’s Canadarm and consulting on International Space Station operations. He is survived by his wife Betty, three children and eight grandchildren; a memorial will be held at the family’s former church in Friendswood, Texas.