Originally Posted by
Dominator2
pontiflex,
I think that your suggestion of what may have happened is totally unfounded and equally unacceptable. Trying to allocate blame with absolutely NO proof is ridiculous.
From my experience, people who are relatively inexperienced but who have been briefed properly, will do exactly as told. If EJECT, EJECT, EJECT is commanded I would not expect the seat to still be there by the 3rd EJECT.
Equally, I would not expect an inexperienced person to recognise when a dangerous situation, as in this accident, was developing. I would not necessarily expect an inexperienced person to initiate ejection with no command from the pilot.
I totally agree with BV that ditching would be out of the question when in a bang seat. SAFE HEIGHT, SAFE SPEED, WINGS LEVEL - EJECT
From your experience? Do you have experience of tellIng a passenger to eject? Telling someone what to do In a classroom is very different from what they might or might not do in a very frightening situation.
Passengers do “recognise” a dangerous situation - in their opinion - and eject, Ask the Red Arrows when a passenger ejected in Scotland.
The reason behind the decision to pull out of formation is, at present, a mystery, but this tragedy resulted from a late ejection outside seat limits. Why? We don’t know, why the pilot turned left we don’t know, why the turn resulted in a stall spin, we don’t know, except the aerodynamics and inertial forces can lead to a spin following a stall in a turn. There are far more questions than answers and they will only come from the BOI.
As for survival, neither occupant had a full chute, but the pilot hit a roof and the passenger hit a tree. The roof was probably slightly more forgiving.
RIP Captain, and I hope for a full recovery for the Pilot.