Posted on 03/28/2022 11:52:38 AM PDT by null and void
A French defense contractor riding in a Dassault fighter learned the hard way that the grab bar next to his seat was actually the ejection handle.
• A French defense-industry employee about to retire was gifted something he was extremely reluctant to accept: a ride in a Dassault fighter jet.
• The 64-year-old was not correctly instructed, to say the least, in passenger etiquette, and to make a long story short, he self-ejected midflight.
• He's okay, according to the government's incident report, but the chance of this gentleman ever repeating the stunt is definitely zero.
Imagine: You work hard your whole life in the French defense industry, and when it's time to retire, your co-workers want to give you something more memorable than a gold watch or a set of golf clubs. So they set up a coveted back-seat ride in a Dassault Rafale B fighter jet, the kind of perk that requires serious connections.
Just one problem: nobody asked one particular 64-year-old civilian whether he ever wanted such a ride, or showed him much about what to expect. Next thing you know, the French Investigation Bureau for State Aviation Safety (BEA-E) is issuing a report explaining how Monsieur Newbie came to experience not only the Dassault, but also its Martin-Baker MK16 ejection seat.
Well, mistakes were made. Lots of them. Since this treat was to be a surprise, the recipient didn't get much of a briefing on what to expect. His g-suit pants weren't on correctly, his seat harness wasn't tight, and his helmet—and oxygen mask—were unbuckled as the plane taxied to the runway at Saint-Dizier 113 air base. He was so nervous that his heartbeat was around 140 beats per minute just from climbing into the plane. Our reluctant Goose did get medical clearance from a doctor, but only four hours before the flight, and with an important stipulation: no negative g's. The way the rest of this was unfolding, do you want to guess whether there were negative g's? Mais oui.
French government incident report on fighter jet From the French government’s incident report. French Bureau Enquêtes Accidents
The fighter pilot, being a fighter pilot, probably thought he was taking it easy as he pulled into a 47-degree climb and generated a 3.7-g load. (Which, incidentally, was also beyond the doctor-ordered limit of 3 g's.) On the climb, both pilot and passenger were crushed down into the seat. But when the plane started to level off, things got real panicky in the rear seat, as a negative 0.67-g load caused the ill-buckled passenger to feel like he was about to fly out of the cockpit. Which, shortly thereafter, he did.
Apparently the quick and dirty safety briefing failed to properly emphasize the fact that the black-and-yellow striped loop in the middle of the seat, between his legs, was not a grab handle but the trigger for the ejection seat. The good doctor's g-load recommendations were surely exceeded as pyrotechnics blasted a hole in the canopy and rocket motors fired the seat and its terrified denizen out into the slipstream high above the French countryside.
Around about the time our hero took to the skies in his very own chairplane, the unbuckled helmet parted ways with the miserable noggin it was pledged to protect.
In a growing cascade of colossal fails, the next one was actually fortuitous: the pilot's own ejection seat malfunctioned. When either the fore or aft seat in a Rafale is triggered, the second one is supposed to follow automatically, on the theory that if one crew member makes an unscheduled departure, there's probably a good reason for the other to promptly join the exodus. And indeed, after the world's unhappiest retiree bid adieu, pyrotechnics blew a hole in the pilot's canopy. But the first ejection damaged the front seat, such that it didn't eject, and the pilot was actually able to land his now al fresco fighter jet. At which point the pilot beat feet away from the aircraft, for fear that the dud seat would, like so many flights, take off late. In fact, nobody was allowed near the plane for 24 hours after it landed, just in case the pilot's seat decided to go all Colonel Stapp and fire the rockets.
As for our unfortunate co-pilot, he made it to the ground with minor injuries and likely a keen desire to never hang out with his old co-workers ever again. Because, as the report notes, he didn't want to ride in a fighter jet in the first place. According to the BEA-E, the passenger "never expressed a desire to carry out this type of flight, and in particular on Rafale," but his cohorts offered him no chance to bail. Ultimately, he did anyway.
He wasn’t tightly strapped in. Nor was his helmet on tight enough. The flight surgeon specified no negative G.
The G was around -0.50 when he pulled. That why reached for something to hold on to. He was off the seat when it banged and soon lost his helmet.
I hope the back of this 60+ year old is okay.
I worked aircraft instrumentation, so I was in the cockpit a lot. One day, in a hanger, I was sitting in the cockpit of an F-4D when the shop clown/idiot, sitting on the sill, grabbed the face curtain loop and started pulling it repeatedly - very hard. Of course, they have safety pins, so nothing happened.
If it had fired, I would've been splattered all over the hanger's roof and the shop clown/idiot would've been crispy (I hope).
Maybe, but first it would probably need a good cleaning.
Indeed, as in ...our hero took to the skies in his very own chairplane
Pretty sure retention pin is removed by ground crew as part of preflight procedures.
Wasn’t that a good one? “Chairplane” — ha!
Come out to the coast...
We’ll have a few laughs...
I wonder how many people know what an “E ticket ride “, refers to.
I got some chuckles out of it. Unlike the poor guy who’s the subject. He’s going to need some hard-core sleeping meds for the next few.....years.
Everyone should try to watch that senate hearing, though! Seriously, we watched the whole 5-1/2 hours.
And the pilot, too! His ejection seat failed and he skedaddled away from the plane as fast as he could so he wouldn’t be incinerated by his seat rockets if they ignited. Yikes!
He’s going to get dressed down, demoted, or drummed out.
Bah! He can sleep when he’s dead.
At least there were no serious casualties.
Yeah...it could have been a real disaster.
I forgot to add that rumor has it a roll of toilet paper comes with the kit. : )
Many a pilot owes their life to Martin Baker.
My wife was along, and we landed at an airfield restaurant. The guy was acting more and more crazy. While we were eating we could hear another group of people saying that the visibility was dropping fast. My wife and I looked at each other and both of us were thinking that we would rather risk our lives than spend the rest of the day with the psycho guy. So we paid the bill and fired up the plane and got out as a fog bank blew in.
Fortunately, we could hear that the visibility was still good at the nearest AWOS weather reporting station to our small home airport. We had to take a roundabout route back home to avoid the problem spots. Along the way Mr. Psycho started freaking out on us. We were so glad to get back and send our crazy guest on his way.
I’ve been chuckling over this for a lot of the last day. Poor guy! I could just see them sort of drunkenly, in a party sort of mood, putting him on the jet and he’s like, “Fellows, I’m not sure if this is...I mean, I don’t really want....can’t we talk about it first?!”
Soon to be a major motion picture.
So many things went wrong/unchecked here. But if the aircraft was in a nose down orientation when an ejection takes place, it is very possible for the craft to slam into the person who ejected. He’s lucky to be alive.
Ah tower, this is Capt. Sum Ting Wong, my passenger just self ejected.
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