Posted on 05/15/2024 6:01:29 AM PDT by Red Badger
An Air Force instructor pilot died early in the morning on May 14 from injuries sustained when the pilot’s T-6A Texan II training plane ejection seat activated during ground operations the day before, the 82nd Training Wing at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, announced in a press release.
“An investigation into the cause of the incident is underway,” the wing wrote, adding that the pilot’s name is being withheld for 24 hours to notify his or her next of kin.
The 82nd is the host unit at Sheppard, but the pilot was assigned to the 80th Flying Training Wing, the unit which runs the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training (ENJJPT) Program, a multinational school where students and instructors from across NATO learn and teach the basics of flying.
The wing flies the T-6, a two-seat propeller plane often used for basic aviation lessons in undergraduate pilot training, and the T-38, a two-seat jet typically used to teach future fighter and bomber pilots. Two years ago, 76 T-6s and 203 T-38s were grounded due to concerns about potentially faulty ejection seat parts. The grounding affected 40 percent of the T-38 fleet and 15 percent of the T-6 fleet.
At the time, Air Force Materiel Command said the explosive cartridges used in the ejection seats may suffer from “quality defects.” Each seat has multiple and redundant explosive cartridges. Two months after the stand-down, the Air Force had found no faulty cartridges on any of the T-6s, Breaking Defense reported at the time.
“Our primary concern is the safety of our Airmen and it is imperative that they have confidence in our equipment,” Maj. Gen. Craig Wills, then-head of the 19th Air Force, said at the time.
The average age of the T-6 fleet is 17 years old, according to 2023 data. While spry compared to the T-38’s average age of about 56 years, senior Air Force leaders say the age of trainer aircraft is slowing down pilot production.
“From the time they [student pilots] are commissioned—because of the challenges we’re having with T-6 and T-38—we have a little bit of a backup. It can be as many as four years,” then-Vice Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin told the House Armed Services Committee in 2023. “So almost an 18 month- to 24 month-wait just to get into pilot training.”
A T-6 made an emergency “belly flop” landing at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas, on April 3 after its pilot declared an in-flight emergency. No one was injured in the incident.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more details become available.
Aviation Ping!......................
What exactly happens when an ejection seat activates? I believe there’s some sort of explosion designed to hurl the pilot (and his seat) well clear of the cockpit. How far does it throw the pilot? In this case, with the ejection occurring on the ground, would it throw him far enough into the air that he’d be severely injured when he hit the ground?
Yes......................
In 1980 at an Air Show at the old Willow Grove NAS in Pennsylvania was sitting in a Navy S3 Viking Jet set as a ground display. They were allowing people to sit in the cockpit. A 7 year old boy was in one of the seats and somehow activated the multiple step and sequence ejection mechanism and was killed after being ejected and landing on the nearby tarmac.
RIP and Prayers for the Family and Friends.
I wonder if it’s more like what happened to Goose in Top Gun.
The Navy depot level rework facility I retired from here works this platform....and is fully certified to handle all maintenance on ejection seats.......hoo boy. 🫣
The T-6 is equipped with a Zero-Zero ejection seat.
Even the best technology is not 100%. Prayer up for the family and everyone involved.
>“An investigation into the cause of the incident is underway,”
I’m going to go w/ their failures ala ‘gun-safety’: Make sure it’s UNLOADED
Like the dumb-asses playing around w/ vehicle airbags *facepalm*
You mean aside from the fact that someone is REALLY dead, leaving family and friends behind?
One would think that by now these ejection seats would be designed as failsafe.
In a DEI world?........................
Gus had some really bad luck. It finally caught up with him on the launch pad of Apollo 1. RIP to brave souls willing to risk it all for science.
Just looking at it from the outside, I would say some maintenance guy’s stuff is in the wind. My son flew T-6s in pilot training too. I will ask him, to make sure, but I think the ejection seat, has streamers, which prevents it from being accidentally activated. The article doesn’t say, but it might have been a preflight thing, where he may have simply leaning over the cockpit. We simply don’t know, but it’s quite a jolt, when it goes off.
Early 2000’s went to the Airshow at Randolph Field (North East San Antonio) and as We were walking from the parking lot to the Flight Line and Static Display the US Army Golden Knights Skydiving Team. We watched in horror as one of the Teams Main Chute snarled and so did the Backup Chute got tangled up in the Main Chute and came down in a grove of trees at the edge of the Base !!!
Tried to find details on the accident and never found anything.
As I recall, “unloaded” wasn’t an option. Using your analogy, there were multiple safeties built into the system that I worked around. I can’t tell from the story if the seat actually ejected, or the rockets Ignited on the ground, starting a fire.
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