MiG-23 Crash - Michigan - 13 Aug 23
 

Thunder Over Michigan Airshow

Wreckage narrowly missed a busy multiple lane highway

Dodgy maintainence ? Same plane lost its canopy in flight at Oshkosh this year.

MiG-23UB N23UB (8107) #A207EB lost a forward canopy window over EAA Airventure 2023 at Oshkosh.

It was the MiG-23UB owned by Dan Filer who has 7 other former Soviet jets in his collection.

He is a former USN A-6 pilot and now an A320 captain

Happier day at an earlier show

Another angle in this Youtube clip.......its almost as if the donk had flamed out, it sounds in this clip if it's no more than idle perhaps?


Crew were lucky to get out looking at the KM-1 seat parameters and method of ejecting.
Could have been a terrible outcome on the ground, but seems luck intervened.

Debris narrowly missed the apartment complex in this photo

https://www.detroitnews.com/gcdn/aut...pjpg&auto=webp

Another view of the ejections

This was the airplane that struck fear into the USAF Red Hats at Tonopah. Can't help wondering about the judgement behind making it a civilian air show performer.

Interesting that they didn’t roll wings level before ejecting - perhaps they couldn’t, for some reason?

I guess it’s natural to want to save yourself, but it’s a big call to abandon your jet in a residential area.

I fail to understand the “gash” idiom.
Having flown this side of the pond in all kinds of my personal, and other’s expensive multi/warbird hardware, I am impressed at the level of maintenance.

Bring It….

I don't think air shows should be relying on luck.

Bird strike, flameout, too low to recover, SOP eject.

A Fedex (MD-11 pilot) neighbor knows the owner of the "former" Mig-23.

Glad to see that the Mig was able to avoid a steeper bank before they bailed out. The pilot probably has an attorney keeping the FAA off of his back.

This video is from right next to a Canadian AFB (CFB), about 12 years ago.
----flopzone: this is partly for you, and you might have seen this successful Dual Bailout from CFB Cold Lake Canada ("12 years ago"), from an jet, with a Danish student in the front (red & white shoulder patch):
A different video might depict their slow flight (near Vmc?) and the quick roll into the failed or "stalled" engine.. Iirc, this accident was caused by either birds or an unrelated (not birds) compressor stall due to whatever factors.

Sidenote: please be aware that a pilot had a fatal accident at Cold Lake in an F-18 in 2016 or so-----

That video isn't from an F-18. It's a Hawk crew (two QFIs) who jumped out after the engine threw a compressor blade at medium level and they were outside of glide range to a runway.

Aviation safety summary

What surprises me is that there were two crew in an aircraft performing at an air display.

I was at a talk regarding ejection from the early Starfighter. Procedure for ejecting was to roll inverted as the seat came out downwards. To quote the pilot giving the talk
"If I had enough control to roll inverted I didn't need to eject".

I've seen several ejections from heavy cold war, high energy aircraft like Phantoms. They all seem to have one thing in common in that they appear to have zero control, appear to wallow before ejection.
Is this just the nature of the beast with these aircraft?

??? Sort of why I was wondering whether there was a control problem, I guess. Because in all the time I spent spent flying ejection seat aircraft, we’d always want to get the wings level and ideally try to get an upwards vector prior to pulling the handle in a low-level ejection.

(I never flew the 104, but suspect there may have been other potential reasons to eject than a lack of roll control… ;) )

Not saying that's what happened but if, for example, that was a total loss of hydraulics there is not much else they could have done.

Mig: Manufactured In Garage :p

A large crate of expensive drinks to whoever maintained the ejection seats, though.

Some pics on this site:

https://eu.freep.com/picture-gallery...ti/8349703001/

No need to speculate - both crew ejected so they’ll be able to tell us.

As described extensively in the comments section under the video, but hey, it's the internet and people just love to spout bollocks here!

An East German saying: "If you want a MiG-23, buy a field near an aerodrome and then wait for one to fall in it".

Given the number and frequency of German Starfighter losses during it's service, that saying was in use on the other side of the wall as well. Trust me.

Wasn't the Starfighters nickname "The Lawn Dart" ?

The air show narrator in fact referred earlier in the day to the F-104 as "Widowmaker".
I can't provide any eye-witness account of the MiG crash.... Thunder Over Michigan is presented twice on two consecutive days, and the morning and afternoon shows are mostly the same. I really enjoyed the morning show . . .

Well very lucky outcome for all involved. I muss say as ejections wold go I'd rather not attempt it out of a 50y soviet jet...

4:05 of video in post #4. Sorry guys for the digress but he says that the Tomcat had a yaw string? On a Mach 2 aircraft?


Update: Apparently true:
https://www.google.ca/search?q=f14+t...h=961&biw=1865

Yep.


I believe the rule for essential crew only doesn't apply to American shows.

Two crew ended up landing in the lake, from what I've seen, which could have ended up badly for them as well.

On this occasion at least, seems to be a better option than remaining in the 50-year old soviet jet.

The European F104s had upward ejection seats by Martin Baker.
A guy I flew with ejected on short finals with an engine fire warning, the aircraft landed on its own and was stopped by the barrier. No damage, no fire.

Which lake? Clearly not the water in the foreground. Plus, reports are saying they landed on the ground.

I presume one of the three interlinked lakes south of the I-94 as the jet hit the ground around the apartment blocks between the water and the I-94, and crew banged out over the lake.....possibly Ford Lake, the western one of the three?

Just seen this, which confirms crew landed in Belleville Lake and pilot sustained serious, but not life threatening injuries, back seater minor injuries. NTSB investigator already saying crash caused by engine problems (as mentioned in post above cited by witnesses) and crew had declared emergency before banging out.

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/...t-was-injured/