Hold on to your seat - but not there!

[okami]

Hey everybody,

Just wanted to share this article I found over on the Guardian. I don't think I ever heard of something like this happening before... <.<

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/02/south-africa-passenger-ejector-seat

[pilotgod]

Yup, it's happened before. US Navy had an incident where a VIP getting a flight in a F-14D didn't know where to put his hands when they went inverted, so he sat them in his lap. The negative G startled him and he involuntarily clenched his hands, unfortunately around the eject handle and turned it into a convertible at 320 KIAS.

[Randy_Cain]

I do hope it wasn't an international flight ..but then who was the VIP? (rhetorical question)

[garryrussell]

Why would you be extremely lucky to have survived an ejection unharmed ...what on earth do they think the seats are for??

Garry

[capflyer]

Ejection Seats are for you to get out and survive instead of die. Most people who've taken a ride came out with broken bones, compressed spines, and various other lacerations and minor injuries. But - you're alive and not part of the smoking hole in the ground your airplane just became.

What was really bad about this is that if you're not in the proper ejection posture (as this guy wasn't) you can get killed. The force of ejection is 40G to 50G and if your head is forward even a little bit, it will be forced into your lap, breaking your neck. It's happened more than once.

[okami]

Back in the 'olden days', when the ejector seats were cartridge-operated, the forces were such that one "bang" could compress your spine up to 5 cm/2in. In some air forces, it was standard policy to permanently ground pilots who'd had to eject an aircraft for a second time on medical grounds.

Airspeed is another factor that is often ignored (although here it obviously didn't play a role): before 1955, ejection at or over supersonic speed was non-survivable; even now there are only 6 documented cases of pilots surviving an ejection of over 700 mph, with the fastest one being that of an A-12 pilot at Mach 3.25 (his navigator also ejected but did not survive).

[pilotgod]

Well, I searched for the story but couldn't find it, so this is just from memory. As I recall the aircraft was out of Fallon NAS in Nevada and the VIP was a fleet (read shipborne) officer who had just been promoted to Admiral. He was getting an intro to the aircraft in the fleet and had already ridden with the E-2, A-6, S-3, and helo squads and had been proud that he never threw up. The pilot of the 14 recommended a few maneuvers, but before they start they do a cockpit FOD check, where they go inverted for a couple of secs and induce negative G's that would cause all unsecured items to float up. When they did this the Admiral was concerned with where to put his hands to keep them from flailing about, so he rested them in his lap. When the negative G came he flinched and grabbed the handle, thus ejecting himself. Normally, the Tomcat's ejection system is in "crew eject", meaning a pull of any eject handle ejects both seats. However, for a FAM flight, the system is switched to "pilot command" which means that the pilot can eject both, but the RIO (rear seat) can't. This is what allowed the pilot to remain in the aircraft and keep flying it.
As for the Admiral, he was fine, just a few scrapes and cuts from the ejection process. He was picked up by helo almost as soon as he hit the ground and returned to Fallon. The Tomcat made an safe and normal landing and was back flying in a couple of weeks.


Okami: your right about the stats. It is still practice today in the US Navy that your third ejection is your last, since the force of the ejection does compress the spine and lead to possibility of fractures, hernias, and slipped discs. As for supersonic eject, it is possible, but highly dangerous. This is one reason the XB-70 Valkyrie and B-58 Hustler used a full capsule system where the entire cockpit was separated from the aircraft. As a bit of trivia, the Mode 1 Abort for the Gemini space capsules was an ejection seat. Basically if the outside atmospheric pressure was at or below 16.50 inches of Mercury then the crew would eject like it was a fighter, above that the capsule was ejected. This is the only time NASA used ejection seats on spacecraft.

[ejoiner]

The F-111 also had an escape pod rather than Ejection seats.