No, it’s a personal decision that each pilot has to make. They’re not obligated to stay with a jet that’s going down. Most pilots eject below the flight manual minimum altitude in an effort to regain control. In fact, a lot of them eject out of the ejection seat performance envelope.
If the plane can be at least partially controlled and pointed in a safe direction, a pilot will do that. They’re trained for that. But a pilot is not doing a service to anybody by riding it in. If they can’t get it under control by the time they reach minimum ejection altitude, that last few thousand feet isn’t going to make a difference, especially in a situation like today’s. The jet was low and slow with an engine out (and who knows what other problems?). It was pretty well written in stone where that jet was going to hit. In that flight regime, the engines and control surfaces just don’t have enough authority to affect the flight path much.
I find it pretty insulting to suggest that the aircrew wasn’t doing their job and going against their training by not riding the jet into the fireball. They did everything they could before they punched out.
From what I’m reading the pilots {trainer and instructor} rode it out as long as possible and were dumping fuel as well on the way down. It would have had to have been a near ground jetison because they landed near the complex. If they hadn’t dumped the fuel the explosion & fire would have taken out several blocks with a likely tripple digit fatality count. From reading this article the cut it about as close as you can get. http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/apr/06/navy-jet-crashes-in-virginia-2-pilots-eject/ It sounds like the three explosions were the jetison, impact, and explosion, of what obviously little fuel remained. It could have been a lot worse outcome.
Well, tell it to those who are suggesting that.