T-6 Instructor Pilot Dies After Ejection Seat Goes Off on the Ground

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.

Ejection seats can be lifesaving, or they can kill you.

Back when they were first used, they had a 155 mm (or perhaps a 105 mm) howitzer charge, and it was brutal. Pilots who ejected often had vertebrae in their back fractured or crushed from the abrupt force of the charge going off.

They soon developed rocket charges that would ignite, and the more gradual application of force was much better for the pilots, although other injuries still could and do occur.

There are generally two different forms of ejection:

One type involves handles over the head that the pilot reaches up and grabs with both hands to pull down and which would (I recall) pull a covering down over the face to help alleviate the sudden force of the wind stream, but this had the undesired possibile outcome of the arms, both extended up to grab the ejection handles, coming down awkwardly, elbows hitting the sides of the seat or the arms even going outside the seat causing broken bones or dislocations to the pilot’s upper extremities. Plus, there is lost time to reach up, or if a pilot is already injured, may not be able to. (I have often wondered if this is how McCain broke his shoulders when he ejected from his A-4 Skyhawk over North Vietnam.)

The other type involves a handle between the pilot’s legs which may be pulled up. This seems to be preferred unless a pilot is in a position to plan the ejection (such as in an event involving fuel exhaustion, etc.) where the pilot has time to think of it. This between the legs method is faster, involves less movement, and reduces the likelihood of upper extremity injuries.

Also, I don’t know if the over the head or between the legs selects an individual ejection or a command ejection. (someone else probably knows this, I cannot remember). If a plane has only one crew, there is no differentiation between a “individual” or a “command” ejection. You pull either one, you eject. However, in a plane with two or more crew, one person may initiate a “command” ejection, where EVERYONE gets ejected whether they want to or not. It is an interesting thing that, in multi-crew aircraft, crew members often discuss the option before they fly together, and leave the choice up to a specific person (either the pilot or RIO/Navigator) to choose, and to put their trust in that decision. I find that a fascinating thought process.

There exists the danger that someone may eject and the other one may not. In a famous case, a Navy RA-5 Vigilante doing reconnaissance over North Vietnam had a missile explode close aboard, and the crew member (aft of the pilot, IIRC) thought the plane had been hit and ejected. The plane had not been hit and the pilot landed safely on the carrier, but the guy who ejected was captured and became a POW.

By design, there are two different ways ejection occurs: First, he canopy is ejected and then the seats leave the plane (this is how “Goose” died in the first Top Gun movie where he hit the canopy) or secondly, the seats go right through the canopy, as hard as that is to believe.

I worked on A-7 Corsairs, and in that design, the seat went right through the canopy. When the pilot pulls the hands to eject, two spring loaded “hammers” on the top of the seat fly upward in a flash and break the canopy, and then the seat goes up through it. I found this hard to believe was a good thing, but we had a plane whose canopy had been badly scratched and scored during a difficult in-flight refueling in bad weather, but instead of just replacing it, they did a training exercise. The object was to verify the process of escaping the plane in a controlled crash if the canopy was stuck closed.

In the hangar bay, they seated a pilot in the plane in full flight gear and strapped in, helmet and all, and while we all watched, they started a timer and the pilot reached down, removed his survival knife (the ones with serrated edges), and with both hands, jabbed it forcefully upwards through the closed plexiglass canopy.

To my (our) astonishment, the blade went right through, and with a few pokes and sawing motions, the pilot was able to exit. (they had taken measures to ensure none of the plastic shards could become FOD (Foreign Object Damage) inside the complex cockpit by covering and taping things off, and stuffing rags in places. It was absolutely cool to watch. I had no idea.

They have multiple safety features on modern seats, both pins with streaming red flags on them, and what is called the “headknocker”. The “headknocker” was the LAST safety mechanism on the seat that would prevent it from firing.

When the pilot gets into the plane before flight, one of our jobs as Plane Captains was to remove the pins with the flags. We would hold them up (I seem to think there were two pins on the seat, but it has been a long time) for the pilot to see on the ground, he would acknowledge the removal with a nod and thumbs up, and then we would store the removed pins inside a compartment in the plane with the wheel and wing locks. (actually, I cannot now recall if the pins were stored in a bag in the cockpit or not...someone else here would be able to comment on that, I’m sure). Then, when we started up the plane, we would get the pilot’s attention, and pointing directly at the pilot, would make a chopping motion to the back of our own head. That was his signal to de-activate the “headknocker” which up to that point, had been irritatingly poking him in the back of his helmet. (Intentionally irritating him)

The pilot would reach up with one hand and stow the “headknocker” by folding it into the headrest behind his head and thumbs up would be exchanged.

The seat was fully armed at this point. It was vital to ensure both pins were removed and the “headknocker” was stowed. In an emergency, it would be impossible for the pins to be removed by the pilot, and the headknocker could not be stowed in time, and the pilot would likely be lost with the plane.

When the pilot landed, after his tail hook was disengaged from the arrestor cable, the first thing they would do when they reached their spot on the flight deck would be to deploy the headknocker to safe the seat. We would climb up and pin the seat. If I recall, this sequence was important, because they didn’t want the pilot to snag something climbing out of the cockpit and firing the seat.

Everyone took this very seriously. I cannot recall if this was on my ship or not, but on one of the carriers, an ejection seat had fired in the hangar bay, killing someone sitting in the seat. It had shot up and left a dent in an area in the overhead where the seat hit, killing the person sitting in it.

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