Born on November 14, 1933, and raised in Biloxi, Mississippi, to Fred Wallace Haise Sr. and Lucille (née Blacksher) Haise. He attended Biloxi High School, from which he graduated in 1950, and Perkinston Junior College (now Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College), with original aims of a career in journalism, receiving an Associate of Arts degree in 1952. He was a Boy Scout, earning the rank of Star Scout. Eligible for the draft and despite being apprehensive of flying, he joined the Naval Aviation Cadet (NAVCAD) training program. Haise underwent Naval Aviator training from 1952 to 1954 and served as a U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina, from March 1954 to September 1956.

He has four children with his first wife Mary Griffin Grant, whom he married in 1954 and divorced in 1978: Mary (b. 1956), Frederick (b. 1958), Stephen (b. 1961), and Thomas (b. 1970). He married his current wife, Frances Patt Price, in 1979.

After his military service, Haise returned to school and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in aeronautical engineering from the University of Oklahoma in 1959, concurrently serving for two years in the Oklahoma Air National Guard, as a fighter interceptor pilot with the 185th Fighter Interceptor Squadron. He then worked for the newly created NASA, first as a research pilot at the Lewis Research Center near Cleveland. His Air National Guard unit was called up during the Berlin Crisis of 1961 and he served ten months as a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force. He was a tactical fighter pilot and chief of the 164th Standardization-Evaluation Flight of the 164th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Mansfield Lahm Air National Guard Base, Ohio.

Haise completed post-graduate courses at the U.S. Air Force Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California in 1964, and attended the six-week Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program in 1972.

In 1966, Haise was one of 19 new astronauts selected for NASA Astronaut Group 5. He had already been working with NASA for several years as a civilian research pilot. He was the first astronaut among his class to be assigned to a mission, serving as backup Lunar Module Pilot for both Apollo 8 and Apollo 11.

Haise flew as the lunar module pilot on the aborted Apollo 13 lunar mission in 1970. Due to the distance between the Earth and Moon during the mission, Haise, Jim Lovell, and Jack Swigert hold the record for the farthest distance from the Earth ever traveled by human beings. During this flight Haise developed a urinary tract infection and later kidney infections. These caused him to be in pain for most of the trip.

Haise remained in the astronaut rotation and served as the backup mission Commander for Apollo 16. Though there was no formal selection, Haise was prospectively slated to command Apollo 19 with William R. Pogue as command module pilot and Gerald P. Carr as lunar module pilot. However, the mission was canceled in late 1970 due to budget cuts.

Haise’s other awards include the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Haley Astronautics Award for 1971; the American Astronautical Society Flight Achievement Awards for 1970 and 1977; the City of New York Gold Medal in 1970; the City of Houston Medal for Valor in 1970; the Jeff Davis Award (1970); the Mississippi Distinguished Civilian Service Medal (1970); the American Defense Ribbon; the SETP’s Ray E. Tenhoff Award for 1966; the A. B. Honts Trophy as the outstanding graduate of Class 64A from the Aerospace Research Pilot School in 1964; an honorary doctor of science degree from Western Michigan University (1970); the JSC Special Achievement Award (1978); the Soaring Society of America’s Certificate of Achievement Award (1978); the General Thomas D. White USAF Space Trophy for 1977; the SETP’s Iven C. Kincheloe Award (1978); and the Air Force Association’s David C. Schilling Award (1978).

On August 22, 1973 Haise was piloting a Convair BT-13 belonging to the Commemorative Air Force that had been converted to look like an Aichi D3A “Val” torpedo bomber for the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!. While attempting a landing go around at Scholes Field in Galveston, Texas an undetermined power plant failure led to a crash landing. Haise suffered second‐degree burns over 50 percent of his body in the post crash fire.

After completing his backup assignment on Apollo 16, Haise moved over to the Space Shuttle program. In 1977, he participated in the program’s Approach and Landing Tests at Edwards Air Force Base. Along with C. Gordon Fullerton as Pilot, Haise as Commander piloted the Space Shuttle Enterprise in free flight to three successful landings after being released from the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. These tests successfully verified the shuttle’s flight characteristics, an important step toward the overall success of the program.

Haise was originally slated to command the second Space Shuttle mission, which would have delivered the Teleoperator Retrieval System that would have boosted Skylab to a higher orbit, preserving it for future use. Delays in the Shuttle program development as well as an unexpected increase in Skylab’s orbital decay led to the mission being abandoned. Skylab was destroyed upon entering the Earth’s atmosphere in July 1979, while the Space Shuttle did not launch until April 1981.

In June 1979, Haise left NASA to become a test pilot and executive with Grumman Aerospace Corporation, where he remained until retiring in 1996. He was the only one out of the four astronauts who conducted the Enterprise landing tests not to fly in space on the Shuttle.

He was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Aerospace Walk of Honor in 1995. He was also one of 24 Apollo astronauts inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame on October 4, 1997.