How on earth could this happen ?

[fixerupper]

I just came across this story it seems crazy ...and very lucky nobody got killed

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...mself-from-fighter-jet-during-surprise-flight

 

[slim_boy_fat]

I'd love a go in a fast jet.

 

[Lewis_RX8]

I would think you need to get to ejector seats fast in an emergency,, But surely there is a way to make them less prone to accidential ejection

 

[Tinbasherdan]

Seems to have been a sh1t show from the beginning, rushed and majorly unprofessional.

nearly as good as the guy that fell out of his brothers jet provost in 94 and landed in a supermarket car park

 

[Tinbasherdan]

I would think you need to get to ejector seats fast in an emergency,, But surely there is a way to make them less prone to accidential ejection

There is, you don’t pull either of the two handles! The seat performed exactly as it should, it’s just that the passenger shouldn’t have grabbed the handle

 

[brightspark]

I would think you need to get to ejector seats fast in an emergency,, But surely there is a way to make them less prone to accidential ejection

yes proper training and not let just any joe soap have a go I once had a near accident hangliding flew of a mountain and it was a gradual downhill slope to the main ridge. ran and took off and followed the slope just off the ground the reserve parachute handle on the harness was dragging on the ground jesus crist if it had deployed it would have gone under the glider and out the back and inflated its a 24 foot one upside down and drop off the thousand foot mountain fortunately it didn't depoy

 

[Migmac]

Do you think there was a oops, merde moment when realised what he’d done. How long would the pilot get to cancel his automatic ejection?

 

[minimutly]

Ejector seats have saved numerous lives - they've also killed a few...

 

[Melvyn Best]

Well, at least he survived. I remember as a kid in the 60s seeing a glider break up in mid air , the pilot bailed out but sadly the parachute malfunctioned. 20 years or so later I was at a parachute club very close to Duxford and a couple of glider pilots thought it would be a good idea to get their emergency rigs repacked, one was told to put the rig on and pull the ripcord, the look on his face when a solid lump of parachute hit the concrete was priceless. His rig was several years old and had never been repacked , reserve parachutes needed to be repacked at the time every 3 months

 

[Retired]

Hi,

Probably thought it was the hand brake.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

[Screwdriver]

Meh.

French.

Much more difficult question; what's the French for je ne sais quois?

I don't know...

 

[duncans]

I'd love a go in a fast jet.

and ejected at the same time that would deff give you a buzzz

 

[Lewis_RX8]

yes proper training and not let just any joe soap have a go

There is, you don’t pull either of the two handles! The seat performed exactly as it should, it’s just that the passenger shouldn’t have grabbed the handle

Skipped the article because of the paywall. Having a closer look at what you can see it wasn't a retired air force member just a defence company executive

And guessing it is a normal kitted out aircraft not anything special for demonstration.

Would have thought that would have been a key detail of the pre-flgiht briefing. What NOT to grab atleast.

 

[rtcosic]

The part I found even more troubling:

A malfunction prevented the pilot from being automatically ejected too

Then you could follow the link to:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...cer-accidentally-fires-gun-at-hollande-speech

 

[badabec]

At least Taffy Holden got away with it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holden's_Lightning_flight

 

[atomant48]

The part I found even more troubling:

A malfunction prevented the pilot from being automatically ejected too

Most tandem ejector seat aircraft allow you to select whether the rear seat ejecting takes the front one with it as well (useful for example if the front seat pilot gets taken out by a birdstrike etc) but I would have thought you’d select that to off with an inexperienced passenger in the back. I wonder if that’s what the “malfunction” was here.

 

[Tinbasherdan]

Do you think there was a oops, merde moment when realised what he’d done. How long would the pilot get to cancel his automatic ejection?

He wouldn’t, had the link worked. By the time it had dawned on him he was banging out, his seat would be falling away and his chute would be opening. Talking fractions of a seconds.
Had the seat worked as intended, a signal from the rear would have caused the front to bang out too. Given the situation, the pilot would have selected both seats going at the same time, given the passenger was inexperienced and couldn’t (technically) be relied upon to pull his own seat in an emergency

 

[daleyd]

Spookily I was just reading this morning about the picture of the English Electric Lightning with the guy ejecting behind the tractor....

 

[8ob]

Seems a bit strange that a Frenchman wants to go that fast, the only reason they eat snails is because its the only thing they can catch

Bob

 

[DanZac]

He wouldn’t, had the link worked. By the time it had dawned on him he was banging out, his seat would be falling away and his chute would be opening. Talking fractions of a seconds.
Had the seat worked as intended, a signal from the rear would have caused the front to bang out too. Given the situation, the pilot would have selected both seats going at the same time, given the passenger was inexperienced and couldn’t (technically) be relied upon to pull his own seat in an emergency

Every modern aircraft I’ve worked on if the a Pilot ejects then the other seat (normally the rear) automatically gets ejected with them, but you have to make a switch change for the other seat to eject the pilot.

Based on the principle that without the pilot your screwed so the other seat had best get ejected too. But the other person might want to save themselves whilst the pilot played hero and avoided crashing into a school.