Originally Posted by
LOMCEVAK
An interesting thread. For those who have the opportunity to fly occasionally with different operators and different nations, there certainly is scope for making a cognitive error and ejecting inadvertently if ambiguous or unintuitive wording is used.
One aspect that has not yet discussed is aircraft that have a command ejection system whereby one person pulls the handle and both seats fire. If an immediate ejection is necessary, how does the person who first decides to pull the handle warn the person in the other cockpit? I always brief to try, time permitting, to call 'Ejecting' as you pull the handle. But that is a personal SOP and not a promulgated one where I fly.
On Tornados there were essentially 3 levels of preparedness:
1) Carry out the ‘Abandoning’ drill from the checklist. This culminated in a call of ‘EJECT EJECT EJECT’ with the teaching being to pull the handle immediately after the third call. The checklist stated that it was preferable for the pilot to pull the handle if circumstances permitted; my best guess at why is that this would assure ejection of both crew, regardless of the command eject setting.
2) If there wasn’t time to prepare fully, either occupant could call ‘EJECT EJECT EJECT’ at any time and pull their handle. This gave a momentary warning to the other crew member to adopt the ejection posture.
3) In extremis you would just pull the handle and hope that you both made it...
The publications all distinguished between the general act of ‘abandoning’ and the specific act of ‘ejecting’. The only time the E-word should have been used was if you were going to pull the handle* but the threefold repetition helped to distinguish between a real command and an inadvertent mention of the E-word (for instance during the takeoff brief).
* I’ve just remembered there was a checklist prompt for the ‘command eject’ setting in the Pre-Takeoff and After Landing checks, which the rear-seater read out: so the (single) E-word was said at least twice per sortie. Context is everything!!