Inadvertant firing
I concur with RetiredBA/BY ( I have 19 years experience flying the T1). The initiation of the seat firing still seems to me to be the most peculiar thing about the accident. The pull needs to be substantial and it seemed very odd that the handle could have been inadvertently operated sufficiently to then make its subsequent accidental operation rather easy. Pins have been wrongly inserted before leaving the seat unsafe, but the initiation still seemed improbable and very peculiar. There was an incident many years ago of a Harrier pilot stepping onto a seat handle which was unsafe and being ejected but that took his weight to apply considerable leverage to bend the handle over a fulcrum point and initiate the sequence. I hope that Sean's sad death will at least lead to a redesign of the handle stowage to minimize any possible repeat of these circumstances. (Anyone remember the Gnat safety handle that dug into the back of your neck if you didn't move it through 90 degs to make the seat live? and the inflight pic of a Red Arrow leaning forward in his seat with the handle still forward in the 'safe' position?)