on a wing and a prayer

On the summer of 1983, an Israeli F-15 staged a mock dogfight with
Skyhawks for training purposes, near Nahal Tzin in the Negev desert.
During the exercise, one of the Skyhawks miscalculated and collided
forcefully with the F-15's wing root. The F-15's pilot was aware that
the wing had been seriously damaged, but decided to try and land in a
nearby airbase, not knowing the extent of his wing damage. It was only
after he had landed, when he climbed out of the cockpit and looked
backward, that the pilot realized what had happened: the wing had been
completely torn off the plane, and he had landed the plane with only
one wing attached. A few months later, the damaged F-15 had been given
a new wing, and returned to operational duty in the squadron. The
engineers at McDonnell Douglas had a hard time believing the story of
the one-winged landing: as far as their planning models were
concerned, this was an impossibility.

source-Wikipedia
subject-lifting bodies

Mark