The topic of 'failed ejection' has arisen [pun intended] so this story may be helpful to some (I did not know the details
highlighted until recently).
Lieutenant Barry Evans - Edited by John Perryman
https://www.navy.gov.au/biography/li...nt-barry-evans
"On 8 November 1973 while the ship was on passage to Singapore, Barry was involved in an incident that saw the [A4G] Skyhawk he was piloting (889) ditch into the sea ahead of Melbourne following a failed catapult launch. Trapped in the aircraft after a
failed ejection attempt he passed under the ship before freeing himself from the aircraft and surfacing about 100-150 yards astern of the carrier.
Barry takes up the story:
The subsequent investigation of the catapult revealed that a disconnected solenoid was responsible for the malfunction of the cat-shot. As a consequence, after approximately just 9 feet of travel down the catapult, all the steam pressure was dumped resulting in an end speed of only around 90 knots instead of the 120 that was required for the aircraft to take flight. (not certain of these speeds but I am certain of the result).
I attempted to eject using the top handle but the seat failed to fire. The canopy came off as part of the sequence but as fate would have it a striker plate that should have turned as part of the ejection seat mechanism was frozen solid (determined by the fact that 4 of the remaining 7 aircraft on board had the same or similar problem) causing the seat not to fire. There are some who suggested that I was lucky that the seat didn’t fire believing that I would have been outside the ejection envelope but I would argue differently.
I hit the water in an almost vertical attitude and as my canopy was missing, the cockpit immediately filled with water. At the same time my head hit the canopy bow and dislodged my oxygen mask so I had to hold my breath. I was braced for the impact with the water but had completely overlooked the fact that all 22,000 tons of HMAS Melbourne doing 22 knots was mere feet away. When the ship hit the aircraft it tumbled quite violently and I was temporarily disorientated. Realising I was starting to panic, I told myself to count to 10 and then find the manual seat harness release to free myself. (It wasn’t as calm as that sounds and counting to 10 consisted of 1, 10, but it achieved the necessary refocusing). On my first attempt to leave the cockpit I got stuck and had to pull myself back in to free whatever it was that was impeding my egress. While I was doing this I heard the very loud sound of the ships propellers passing over the top of me so obviously someone was looking out for me. I surfaced 100 – 150 yards astern of the ship with Pedro [the rescue helicopter] hovering over the top of me to the very surprised look of the winch man at the door of the Wessex...."