Inadvertent ejection.
Inadvertent ejection.
I don't own this space under my name. I should have leased it while I still could
US SAC Combat Crew magazine, probably 67-69, carried an article on inadvertent ejections. In this case 3 from B52s.
All occurred during low level oil burner flights. All involved the tail gunner. The same tail gunner was involved in two and his best friend in the other.
In one case his intercom had become unplugged. He reconnected in time to hear one navigator say "What do you think they'll do?" and the response "I think they'll go down."
The navigators discussion on stock and share prices was interrupted by a BANG.
I don't recall the details of the other two cases but I think there was a case of moderate to severe turbulence at low level and I believe the ride in the back of a Buff was exciting to say the least.
All occurred during low level oil burner flights. All involved the tail gunner. The same tail gunner was involved in two and his best friend in the other.
In one case his intercom had become unplugged. He reconnected in time to hear one navigator say "What do you think they'll do?" and the response "I think they'll go down."
The navigators discussion on stock and share prices was interrupted by a BANG.
I don't recall the details of the other two cases but I think there was a case of moderate to severe turbulence at low level and I believe the ride in the back of a Buff was exciting to say the least.
Oh No, not Wedge again.
Turnback.
Some time ago a Fighter Controller was taken for a back seat in a Hawk. Not wishing to go into detail he ended up in the Oggin whilst the pilot landed the Hawk. Lots of paperwork to follow. He insists the seat went off and...well....I'll leave it to others....
Turnback.
Some time ago a Fighter Controller was taken for a back seat in a Hawk. Not wishing to go into detail he ended up in the Oggin whilst the pilot landed the Hawk. Lots of paperwork to follow. He insists the seat went off and...well....I'll leave it to others....
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Been touched on before here:
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...wk#post2169420
See post numbers 77, 89, 91 and 93.
STH
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...wk#post2169420
See post numbers 77, 89, 91 and 93.
STH
The one bang-seat incident that sticks out though was one which happened aboard the Russian ASW Carrier Minsk (if memory serves). The background is that the designers at Yakovlev, when creating the Forger, realised that, under some circumstances, it may be a difficult plane to eject from. They therefore developed an automatic system, called Eskem, to trigger the bang-seat if certain pitch, yaw and roll parameters were exceeded in the takeoff and landing flight phases.
The incident aboard Minsk revolved around an occaision where Eskem was called upon to perform as advertised. A Yak-38 had suffered a mechanical casualty. I have a dim memory of hearing that the starboard lift-jet failed on landing sending the aircraft into a sudden and violent roll in that direction. Unfortunately for the pilot he had elected to land approximately amidships on the carrier, the easiest spot usually as its the centre of the vessels roll, and to his immediate starboard was the superstructure.
The captain of the vessel, standing on the bridge at the time was apparently well placed to first see one of his fast-jets get into trouble then see it roll clockwise and promptly shoot its pilot out straight at the bridge. I cant recall whether the pilot survived or not but I do remember that the abandoned aircraft just made it over the edge of the deck and narrowly missed plowing into the amassed missile batteries on the vessels foredeck.
This story has done the rounds a bit but i'm sure that in essence it's true.
The incident aboard Minsk revolved around an occaision where Eskem was called upon to perform as advertised. A Yak-38 had suffered a mechanical casualty. I have a dim memory of hearing that the starboard lift-jet failed on landing sending the aircraft into a sudden and violent roll in that direction. Unfortunately for the pilot he had elected to land approximately amidships on the carrier, the easiest spot usually as its the centre of the vessels roll, and to his immediate starboard was the superstructure.
The captain of the vessel, standing on the bridge at the time was apparently well placed to first see one of his fast-jets get into trouble then see it roll clockwise and promptly shoot its pilot out straight at the bridge. I cant recall whether the pilot survived or not but I do remember that the abandoned aircraft just made it over the edge of the deck and narrowly missed plowing into the amassed missile batteries on the vessels foredeck.
This story has done the rounds a bit but i'm sure that in essence it's true.
Myself and a fellow QA inspector were performing a pre-flight inspection of an F-4G prior to a Functional Check Flight (FCF). A crew chief and his partner were changing a battery on another F-4 only two jets away from us. Now for those of you who remember the F-4 days, you know that a battery change on an F-4 is no easy task, requiring that the seat be in the lowest position, the rudder pedal being folded forward and the #7 circuit breaker panel being removed ( I know that this was not the case in the earlier versions of the F-4, when the rocket motor initiator was located under the seat, attached to a lanyard to the floor of the acft and required that the seat be removed. On the later versions of the seat, a TCTO moved the initiator to the left side of the seat, and the peso did not require removal from the cockpit) Anyway, the battery was inadvertently drained through the night, and the seat was in the up position. As you old timers will know, the F-4 will not accept external power with a dead battery. Egress was called to remove the peso, and the crew chief and his partner pressed on with the battery change. With some time and patience, the battery was R2'd and the crew chief wanted to now lower the seat to make the rest of the battery install go easier. Now for those of you who have not worked the "G" model F-4, the wiring harness to the #7 c/b panel was longer than usual due to the sex change from from "E" to "G" configuration. This allowed the #7 circuit breaker panel to be set on the floor of the acft, while still attached to the cannon plugs attached to it. While sitting in the seat, he had his assistant apply power to the jet with a -60 power unit and lower the seat . Little did he know that he was pinning the c/b panel between the bottom of the seat and the floor. The scene now is that he is sitting on a seat that is on top of a live panel, which then proceeds to torch a hole in the rocket motor package. Needless to say the seat fired after a hole was burned through the rocket motor. When this thing went it scared the wholly living **** out me and my partner. The first thing that we thought was that maybe EOD was blowing up some stuff somewhere on base ( that was a pretty common occurrence at Nellis ). We both looked up to see an ejection seat in the air with the drogue chute just starting to deploy. I thought to myself that I hoped to Christ that no one was in it. The seat was at least as high as the flood lights that light up the flightline of most Air Force bases, at least 100 ft. high. The seat and occupant both came down very rapidly, with the seat landing on the wing of the next acft, and the crew chief on the ground. I and my partner were the first ones on the scene, and after declaring a ground emergency to maintenance control, we realized that there was nothing to do except cordon off the area and wait for the ambulance to arrive. As we all know, almost all ejection seat accidents are always fatal, and this was no exception. The crew chief was killed in this accident. Then entire rear canopy was taken out and broken into several pieces. Once the area was cleared,and egress technicians were on the scene, we had realized what had happened. Prior to this, myself and my QA buddy along with other mechanics, were trying to figure out what had happened. The seat landed on the wing of the next acft. lying on its' side, partially covered by the drogue chute. We counted all of the safety pins and the "D" ring guard was in the up "safe" position. How the hell did this thing go off? Anyway, the investigation had revealed that it was in fact the #7 circuit breaker panel that had burned a hole into the rocket motor pack that caused the seat to fire. I had always heard about ejection seat accidents, but never thought that I would be witness to one. It has really given me a new sense of respect for the ejection system, a system that most of us maintainers take for granted these days. I always do my "seat safe for cockpit entry" prior to getting into the cockpit of any acft.
Story by Brian Kidd, jet engine mechanic in the USAF, who spent 3 years as a Quality assurance (QA) inspector with the 561st fighter squadron at Nellis AFB, Nevada, from August 1992-95.
Story by Brian Kidd, jet engine mechanic in the USAF, who spent 3 years as a Quality assurance (QA) inspector with the 561st fighter squadron at Nellis AFB, Nevada, from August 1992-95.
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The pilot had selected attitude hold on the auto-pilot of his A-7E so that he could raise the radiation thermal shield that had been lowered to simulate instrument conditions. As he attempted to raise the fiberglass shield following laydown release of the mk-106 at 10,000', his elbow inadvertently hit the end of the 6" long canopy release lever and unseated the canopy.
At about 300kts IAS, the wind immediately took the canopy off and the thermal shield impacted his helmet, knocking him unconscious and apparently striking the upper ejection handle. Ejected from the aircraft, he came to just prior to impacting the ground a few miles north of the target at NAS Fallon NEV. The LTjg pilot was shaken but physically unharmed by his adventure.
Unfortunately, his chase safety observer was so busy attempting to spot the bomb hit for scoring purposes that he lost site of the mishap aircraft and missed the whole thing. In the meantime, the aircraft continued northbound with enough fuel on board to make it into Canada and create and international incident.
The a/c was tracked by Oakland Center until it was lost in the shadow of a mountain around Provo Utah. Everyone "assumed" it crashed on the snow-covered mountain. Local skiers and campers in the area all said they heard the aircraft at tree-top level and knew the crash site had to be near by.
Well, weeks went by, then months and the squadron left on an extended combat deployment to SouthEast Asia aboard the USS Kitty Hawk. Over a year later, after they returned from Vietnam, the Aircraft was finally located. It had not crashed into the mountain after all; rather, it had managed to skirt the back side of the mountian and was not reacquired by the radar operator as it continued in attitude hold on a southeasterly course until it ran out of JP and made a relatively soft gear-up, out-of-fuel landing in a remote area in Utah.
Story courtesy CDR. Russ Pearson USN (Ret), Squadron Aviation Safety Officer, VA-195 1971
At about 300kts IAS, the wind immediately took the canopy off and the thermal shield impacted his helmet, knocking him unconscious and apparently striking the upper ejection handle. Ejected from the aircraft, he came to just prior to impacting the ground a few miles north of the target at NAS Fallon NEV. The LTjg pilot was shaken but physically unharmed by his adventure.
Unfortunately, his chase safety observer was so busy attempting to spot the bomb hit for scoring purposes that he lost site of the mishap aircraft and missed the whole thing. In the meantime, the aircraft continued northbound with enough fuel on board to make it into Canada and create and international incident.
The a/c was tracked by Oakland Center until it was lost in the shadow of a mountain around Provo Utah. Everyone "assumed" it crashed on the snow-covered mountain. Local skiers and campers in the area all said they heard the aircraft at tree-top level and knew the crash site had to be near by.
Well, weeks went by, then months and the squadron left on an extended combat deployment to SouthEast Asia aboard the USS Kitty Hawk. Over a year later, after they returned from Vietnam, the Aircraft was finally located. It had not crashed into the mountain after all; rather, it had managed to skirt the back side of the mountian and was not reacquired by the radar operator as it continued in attitude hold on a southeasterly course until it ran out of JP and made a relatively soft gear-up, out-of-fuel landing in a remote area in Utah.
Story courtesy CDR. Russ Pearson USN (Ret), Squadron Aviation Safety Officer, VA-195 1971
A young Somali boy was poking around a Somali Air Force hangar shortly after the military had abandoned its base at Mogadishu. Chaos was running rampant in the area, as feuding rebel warlords were fighting for control, starvation was prominent and the UN peacekeeping force had not yet arrived. The curious Somali teenager hopped up into the cockpit of one of the abandoned Mig 15s in the hangar and undoubtably proceeded to fulfill his fantasies as an aspiring fighter pilot. Unfortunately, he encountered more realism than he desired when he pulled the ejection handles and immediately found out that the seat was one item in the dysfunctional aircraft that still worked. He proceeded to get the ride of his life as the seat fired, and a few milliseconds later he was airborne and rapidly heading toward the wild blue yonder. Unfortunately, there was a hangar roof between him and the sky, and he never took the opportunity to strap into the seat as he was playing aspiring fighter pilot. As he approached the hangar roof, his body gradually drifted apart from the seat and achieved sufficient lateral separation to avoid coming to a rapid halt as the seat impacted an overhead 12" steel girder support beam, putting a serious deformation in it. Our flying Somali superboy fared only slightly better, as his body was undoubtably bashed and shredded as it punched a hole through the sheet roof and landed on the tarmac outside the hangar.
Above three stories from the ejectionsite.com
Above three stories from the ejectionsite.com
A navy mate described a case of mis-communication. Allegedly a Sea Vixen mate was involved in some fishy fun with his jet when something didn't go as he'd intended. "Oh $hit" quoth he. Wherupon there was a load bang from the coal hole and he was astonished to see his looker (for all our non Royal Navy fans = Observer) disappearing upwards courtesy of Martin Baker! Equally perplexed was the observer, as he saw one of HM's Vixens pootling happily along with just the awkward sight of a bang seat rod poking up into the slipstream! There was a wonderful cartoon which showed the looker suspended under his parachute musing "$hit - I thought he said 'Eject'! No he didn't - he said 'Oh $hit'. OH $HIT!"
Originally Posted by jimgriff
The one bang-seat incident that sticks out though was one which happened aboard the Russian ASW Carrier Minsk <snipped bits>
This story has done the rounds a bit but i'm sure that in essence it's true.
This story has done the rounds a bit but i'm sure that in essence it's true.
I met someone who'd departed from his aircraft courtesy of the auto-eject system. He had the video to prove it. Even watching it through my vodka goggles I thought it was a jolly spiffing film to have to back up a "there I was flying my jet and minding my own business when.." story. The jet had a lift engine failure in the hover but he was already out before any pitching was even apparent on the (shot from the ground) video. The jet was upside-down on the ground about two seconds later.
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Then there was young Tom Stoney minding his own business in a RAAF Meteor 8 out of Iwakuni in Japan circa 1951. Suddenly he found himself being confronted by his aircraft as it unsuccessfully tried to recover him to its boosom!
Then a couple of RAAF unfortunates down under tried a turn back after engine failure in a Vampire. Their wheels up across rough ground caused both seats to fire. A strong canopy contained the ejections and the seat rails came out through the bottom.
Then a couple of RAAF unfortunates down under tried a turn back after engine failure in a Vampire. Their wheels up across rough ground caused both seats to fire. A strong canopy contained the ejections and the seat rails came out through the bottom.
Thought police antagonist
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What about the possible urban myth --albeit one that we had drummed into us as apprenti.--concerning the guy working in the cockpit of a Hunter and who, allegedly, got between the stick and the seat when he fired the seat?.
And survived.
Always wondered about this incident, if it actually transpired etc. or was it just one of those enduring myths that migrate into "reality" over time ?.
And survived.
Always wondered about this incident, if it actually transpired etc. or was it just one of those enduring myths that migrate into "reality" over time ?.
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A Austrian Defence Attache managed to eject himself from a Swedish Air Force SK-60 jet trainer som years ago. Was reaching to adjust his seat straps, and inadvertently pulled the backup "T" ejector handle between his legs. (Main handle is overhead) PIC piloted his now convertible SK-60 to a safe landing.
Cannot recall what happened to the unlucky attache, but he survived.
The brief for ride-along passengers today include a "whatever you do, do not reach between your legs in flight" lecture.
Cannot recall what happened to the unlucky attache, but he survived.
The brief for ride-along passengers today include a "whatever you do, do not reach between your legs in flight" lecture.
Here you are Krystal.......
The following story was witnessed and verified to the author and was apparently reported in "Airclues" the RAF flight Safety magazine.
Webmaster's note: There might be just a small amount of Urban Myth about this one!
Date: Early 1960's
Place: RAF Wattisham, England.
A rather chubby instrument fitter wearing a winter 'cold weather' anorak was working in the cockpit (delving in the space behind the instrument panel) of a Hawker Hunter. The canopy had been removed for servicing. Suddenly he heard the click of a seat sear being removed and a clockwork mechanism (main gun firing mechanism?) running. The seat ejected and went through the hangar roof amongst a clatter of dropped tools and strange toilet like smells.
The techies were surprised to hear a muted "Get me out of here!" coming from the smoking Hunter.
The fitter had wriggled into the space in front of the seat, under the instrument panel and was now firmly wedged into the very small space.
The duty crash crew had to be called to cut him out and in so doing totalled the aircraft.
Subsequent tests showed that there was no way that the fitter could get himself into the space available....but he did!
The following story was witnessed and verified to the author and was apparently reported in "Airclues" the RAF flight Safety magazine.
Webmaster's note: There might be just a small amount of Urban Myth about this one!
Date: Early 1960's
Place: RAF Wattisham, England.
A rather chubby instrument fitter wearing a winter 'cold weather' anorak was working in the cockpit (delving in the space behind the instrument panel) of a Hawker Hunter. The canopy had been removed for servicing. Suddenly he heard the click of a seat sear being removed and a clockwork mechanism (main gun firing mechanism?) running. The seat ejected and went through the hangar roof amongst a clatter of dropped tools and strange toilet like smells.
The techies were surprised to hear a muted "Get me out of here!" coming from the smoking Hunter.
The fitter had wriggled into the space in front of the seat, under the instrument panel and was now firmly wedged into the very small space.
The duty crash crew had to be called to cut him out and in so doing totalled the aircraft.
Subsequent tests showed that there was no way that the fitter could get himself into the space available....but he did!