French pensioner ejected from fighter jet after accidentally grabbing bang seat* handle An elderly and reluctant Frenchman was ejected from a French Air Force fighter during a retirement day jolly – and narrowly missed taking the pilot with him, an investigation report littered with unintentional howlers has revealed. The unnamed 64-year-old was éjecté from the two-seat Rafale-B from a height of 2,500ft in March …
No, due to a fault, the pilot wasn't ejected as well. The system should eject the pilot when the P2 leaves. That failed. The canopy was detonated.
Apparently before the flight the passengers heart rate hit 135. It's not known what it hit when he banged out.
The reaction to grab the release is interesting. When people get negative G, its very common for them to raise their hands. I've seen it regularly. He did the opposite.
What's also clear is people sense through their backsides. Loose straps matter. Lap strap first and tight. That keeps your bum on the seat, even in negative G.
The pilot should bear some responsibility for the incident. As my microlight instructor drilled into me, it is my job as pilot in command to ensure that not only me, but my passenger is properly strapped in (by physically grabbing and pulling his harness) and that his helmet is similarly attached. The lax attitude towards established procedure could easily have killed them both and the (potentially pilotless) aircraft could have crashed hitting and killing more people.
On the other side, as nobody was apparently hurt; it was rather funny. I bet the look on the pensioner's face was a treat as he got ejected! He'll never forget that day! He'll have a good tale to tell to his shrink regarding his PTSD.
I think the pilot bears a lot of responsibility actually. He has the final responsibility for the flight. He should totally have checked the passenger's harness and other equipment and awareness of all safety equipment (and probably should have refused to take him in the first place). It's absolutely his job to do so.
By the way even though the pensioner survived, it's not exactly great to have your spine compressed during the forces of an ejection seat. It's a last resort to save you from certain death. It's basically a rocket you're strapped onto. Many ejected pilots have back problems and those are in the primes of their lives. And were properly strapped in. I bet this guy will have back trouble for the rest of his life.
In most NP US hospitals if needing emergency care he would be treated though uninsured. Then they'd seek to gain a judgment against him and collect his house or other assets as payment against a bill much higher than the hospital would charge an insurer which had a contract-set price.
If this had happened in the US, he'd have sued the Air Force not just for any medical bills but for all sorts of damages and possible aftercare further down the line. If that many errors had occurred in the run-up to the accident, I doubt anyone would have remembered the disclaimer signature. And anyway, I'm not sure if even a disclaimer could obviate the duty of care whereby the pensioner could not possibly be expected to understand and account for all the safety procedures, equipment set-up etc. that the "pros" were supposed to deal with.
Even though it did happen in France and their healthcare system will almost certainly cover him, he's probably still got a case for compo against the French Air Force.
>France's excellent health care service is actually less socialised than the UK's.
Not so - primarily funded by the government National Health Insurance scheme ~5% of income (varies by income source). France is better funded as unlike National Insurance here it's based on your income from all sources not just selected earnings - so much more socialised in fact.
The key difference is that it isn't free at the point of delivery (costs are reimbursed from the nhi), so is much more responsive to local needs, as determined by demand, rather than having resources assigned by a central authority, based on pre-determined need, with mandates for equity and non-discrimination between regions. That would arguably make the UK the more socialised model.
Fortunately, those countries without socialised healthcare also have militaries with the brains to say "hell no we're not letting an old guy with no training ride in our shiny without making certain he's dressed and strapped in properly and the bang button is disabled."
So, no healthcare needed.
It's easy enough to point fingers at the pilot for not checking the guy was strapped in, but at the same time fingers need to be pointed at the ground crew for missing the safety features. This makes me very uneasy to read, given that I live in rural France and the flyboys use the countryside as their playground (under the logic that a crash will maybe kill some, probably more livestock than human, and would be nothing like as bad as crashing into a city). I mean, if they overlooked checking that, what else gets overlooked?
The ground crew is not responsible. They probably share some blame but they don't have the responsibility for making the flight or not. The pilot is. He chose to take off without doublechecking what was an irregular situation at the very least.
Even though ground crew performs maintenance, a walkaround inspection of the aircraft by the pilot is part of a flight. He carries the responsibilty for choosing to fly and the welfare of the passengers and if he took the ground crew's word for it and they were wrong, it's his responsibility for not doublechecking. He should have ensured the passenger was comfortable and well instructed. With a military copilot you could probably assume they know what they're doing. Not with a civilian.
Even if you put a passenger in a simple single prop plane in the right-hand seat it could be a risk, the dual controls can't be disabled and it's always possible the passenger freaks out and whacks the controls at the wrong time. Even in such a situation a responsible pilot should evaluate that possibility. And GA flights are really mellow. Putting a retiree in a 4G flight is really likely to cause problems (and negative G can be even more disconcerting if you've never had that before).
Not sure whether this goes for military flights too but I'm pretty sure the same will apply. This is not wartime where an immediate scramble is necessary.
In the USAF, the plane captain (usually a senior enlisted) would be responsible for ensuring the aircraft is ready for flight - the article states that a "mechanic" checked the pensioner's restraints, and the pilot's. This was probably the French equivalent of a plane captain. The pilot doubtless did his walkaround of the aircraft itself, but assumed the plane captain would ensure the passenger was properly settled. The Plane Captain presumed that the pilot had properly instructed the passenger. That said, neither one should have gone on assumptions or "the other person's problem", especially for an older gentleman who wasn't even a retiring pilot...they both should have checked him over at every stage...it might take the pilot x minutes to suit up, but he's done it a few hundreds of times, he should have been monitoring the older man's every move during suit up. Clearly they didn't even test the intercom to make sure the passenger could communicate with the pilot, and THAT should be a checklist item anytime there's a backseater.
Just to nitpick (sorry). US Navy has plane captains. USAF has Dedicated Crew Chiefs. Same role, different names. DCCs come in a variety of ranks, from SRA to MSgt, depending on the size of the aircraft, how many crew chiefs are in the squadron, etc. But we try to see each jet has at least a SSgt or TSgt assigned. What it does mean, is they are assigned to that jet, primarily (though they can be tasked to work other jets and other duties as needed). They often take great pride in "their" jet, so much so that wives often refer to the jet as "the other woman".
I have encountered the being up a glen side here in Scotland when the peace is absolutely shattered by a military jet screaming by and you being on a level with the pilot.
It's a good job grouse are not good flyers though a military jet might just chew one up no damage. Though we do get skeins of geese honking through the skies in Autumn and through the Winter. One or more of those would do an engine some damage.
Sadly I haven't been in the Glens often enough recently to tell whether the move of the planes from Leuchars over the Tay to Lossiemouth (affected often by fog) has reduced the number of flights up the Angus Glens. The high cost of Trident is distorting conventional forces and they are pared to the bone. Also HMG is deliberately running down and selling off state assets in Scotland, thinking about the inevitability of the coming divorce.
Though if they expect Scotland to join NATO and let them know if Russian Bears are heading down the North Sea towards England it will have to negotiate that. The clusterfuck of the negotiations with Europe do not bode well so we might have you over a barrel over lots fo stuff post Independence. Don't say you weren't warned. If Boris is in charge you will be in trouble. Also the EU will be watching over our shoulders and helping us out. The Auld Alliance is about to expand.
By the way even though the pensioner survived, it's not exactly great to have your spine compressed during the forces of an ejection seat. It's a last resort to save you from certain death. It's basically a rocket you're strapped onto. Many ejected pilots have back problems and those are in the primes of their lives. And were properly strapped in. I bet this guy will have back trouble for the rest of his life.
And this doesn't mention another point.
When I was in the Air Cadets before they'd let us do flying or gliding we had to watch a safety video on how to use the parachute and then demonstrate to the satisfaction of some people with a spectacular lack of a sense of humor with little tolerance for adolescent practical jokes that we'd listened carefully to the training video and could use the chute.
Part of which was demonstrating that you knew how to do the parachute landing fall (ie; land and roll) to absorb enough of the impact to avoid breaking fragile things like ankles and knees in addition to falling correctly and deploying the dammed thing.
Obviously the ejection seat negates the need for the training on deploying it properly, but landing in a metal seat is not gonna be pleasant, and it'd be worse if the straps aren't done up properly!
AIUI the occupant doesn't land in the seat. After the seat ejects, the occupant is released from it - with the occupant dangling under the canopy, and the seat dangling some distance below on a cord. Not only does this avoid the seat falling at high speed - it means it lands in the vicinity of the occupant, giving access to the emergency pack stored in it.
It depends on the seat design. Some lose the seat afterwards, some don't.
But my point is simply that doing a parachute landing when trained is something you have to be quite careful about. Now imagine a terrified pensioner with literally zero training making a parachute landing.
If he didn't break his ankles or knees then he's incredibly lucky.
The seat dangling by a cord some distance below has another advantage. It means there will suddenly be less weight hanging under the canopy shortly before landing so the landing speed will be reduced. That means less time in total dangling in the air (unsafe situation in combat) with a less unsafe landing speed.
NB: Military landing speeds with parachutes aren't exactly safe.
I was an air cadet in the mid 90's and although we watched the safety videos etc. the extent of the parachute landing training was "and when you reach the ground keep your knees bent so you don't break your legs", but no training or testing etc. I think the assumption was that you were almost certainly not going to use the parachute, so a couple of broken legs would be the least of your issues.
It's really lucky the system failed and the pilot wasn't ejected. Because the plane would have been out of control and could have crashed anywhere, having just taken off it would have been full of fuel. It could have been a school or a hospital.
Normally before a pilot ejects (especially in peacetime) they're supposed to point it somewhere as safe as possible (if they still have control obviously).
Nah, connector disconnect due to badly screwed up securing sleeve. If you ask me it's the base commanding officer that needs to be disciplined, the accident report is a masterpiece of comedy except that the matter is serious.
It beats me how the plane, pilot and passenger survived such a series of errors. Mind you, in a way, it is a good advert for the plane manufacturer (and not a good advert for the French Armée de l’air).
Excuse my French but, from the French report ," Cette rupture a eu lieu en raison d’un serrage incomplet de la vis de retenue de la ligne dans le corps du sélecteur." In other words an incompletely screwed up retaining screw allowed a cable to be forced out of the front seat ejection sequencer by the blast from the rear seat pyrotechnics going bang. This meant that the front seat didn't go bang.
The front seat belt-tightening and canopy-smashing pyrotechnics did work because initiated by a different cable from sequencer.
Someone didn't fully tighten a retaining screw - fortunately.
It was fortunate in this particular and probably unique case.
Under any other circumstance, when somebody in the plane pulls the EJECT handle then lives depend on it going off, and it should have gone off in this particular situation. Obviously it not doing saved the aircraft, but it could have as easily cost the life of the pilot.
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Kudos to the pilot for landing it. We had a nav eject from a tornado on takeoff and the pilot went with him. Thankfully he had the sense to idle the throttles first, as we were at 7000 feet above sea level. The jet had taken the cable and was in the barrier, not far from the end of the runway, engines running, with an empty cockpit.
Took us months to get it ready for flight again, only for it to deemed U/S (after ground runs) due to a twisted airframe. Only had 250 hours on it as well
> they're supposed to point it somewhere as safe as possible (if they still have control obviously).
That's a myth busted in the Fighter Pilor Podcast - the guy explains that in the heat of the moment it's very unlikely that any pilot would actually take the time to think of this.
There's a memorial at Upper Heyford to an F-111E crew that chose to attempt to avoid the village when landing instead of ejecting and the aircraft hitting the village/school (probably, you never know what's going to happen when an F-111 goes pilotless). The resulting crash just missed me by about 30yds as I rounded the end of the runway. I saw the fireball in my rear and sideview mirrors and felt the "thump" as the airframe impacted. Unfortunately, the crew did not survive the ejection (the capsule did eject, but with only a partial rocket motor burn so not high enough to fully engage the parachute). When we got to the capsule (another driver and I), it was...obvious the crew hit the instrument panel and had not survived, despite restraints, etc. To top it off, the aircrew and jet were from my squadron, where I was the maintenance officer...bad day all 'round.
I hope to hell those aircrew got a memorial and/or posthumous honors - the highest not relating to active combat. They risked and ultimately lost their lives protecting the civilian population they swore an oath to protect - whatever oath it was.
That's dedication, duty and service. Nobody could have faulted them for choosing differently, but they did.
Even worse, it had partially gone off... From another site......
As I understood it from someone involved in the Rafale community the command eject system was live and was triggered by the rear ejection. The initial sequence for the front seat was complete (pyro gases triggering canopy, seat harness retraction etc) but failed at the very last step - the main cartridge for the front seat gun itself. Apparently the front seat sequencer was energised / impinged by the pyro gases but rather than sequencing correctly it exploded and was physically blown free of the seat mounting structure.
So the pilot got to land a cabriolet, having been subject to a power retract of his harness and with an explosively damaged seat underneath him.
Thanks for adding the details.
Presumably the straps were tensioned for the ejection, which would change them from tight to extremely tight. And the pilot would have felt the explosion under his seat. Once he figured out that a single ejection happened, he must have realized that he no longer had the option of ejecting himself.
As for blaming the pilot for any part of the badly-done prep, I don't see that. Presumably the pilot was already strapped into place and had no ability to check the passenger. He was relying on the ground crew for that.
"As for blaming the pilot for any part of the badly-done prep, I don't see that. Presumably the pilot was already strapped into place and had no ability to check the passenger. He was relying on the ground crew for that."
I'd expect that to be the case if the back seat was occupied by highly trained colleague, but not when he's taking a civvie up for a jaunt. He should have made sure the passenger was properly in place before he got in.
Had something similar happen to an F-15A pilot. As he leveled off after takeoff, the canopy departed the airframe (crew chief fault for packing gear and preventing the canopy from locking fully...light went out, but it came unsecured at the push-over at altitude), taking with it all his baggage and the other equipment stored behind the seat. When he landed, the pyro actuation indicator was up, so when he taxied into his spot, we informed him he was sitting on a "hot" seat and he may want to vacate expediently...which he did.
Ironically, he was at our base to lead an inquiry for a jet that lost it's canopy the previous week...
Maximum heart rate declines with age, the usual equation is 220 minus age which puts a new pensioner (65) at 135 assuming no history of ongoing athletic endeavour. So he would have been near max before takeoff.
I'm 54 but a lifelong distance runner and I have recent evidence that my Max HR is at least 180. I cruise at the low 160s and still able to up that to run outside the railings by the school* with a car approaching from behind (I pride myself on it).
*They wrap around the corner a long way. I employ the same trick to speed up Mo Farrah does I realised once. No fancy, dodgy Seattle coach required.
A very interesting (if quite long) podcast episode from the often excellent Omega Tau on host Markus Voelter's flight with the USAF dispaly team Thunderbirds, including the excellent medical briefing and flight briefing he went through. The mind boggles that this french guy seemed to just rock up and go.
https://omegataupodcast.net/318-my-flight-with-the-usaf-thunderbirds/
Yeah, my incentive ride in and F-15B (76-130) required a 4 hour training session. We covered oxygen equipment, how to dress, secure, and even went through a mock ejection trainer. The pilot's briefing included: "..if we have to eject, you will hear me say "bailout, bailout, bailout". But if you're waiting for the 3rd "bailout", you'll be all by yourself."
Great ride. Got to see the Grand Canyon, inverted. Went past Mach 1, and got to do some acrobatics. One of the best 90min of my life.
Indeed. Yet, it could be worse. A 1991 incident saw an ejection seat failure and the navigator stuck half inside half outside the aircraft with the parachute wrapped around the tail end of the plane.
Quote:
"As the plane slowly decelerated, Baden looked up to see rest of Gallagher’s body buffeting in the wind. The navigator’s head snapped about he appeared unable to breathe. [...] Gallagher’s face was distorted with the force of the wind. His cheeks and eyes were bulging. His neck strained dreadfully with the attempt to stay with the plane. At his belly were the razor-sharp, jagged edges of the Plexiglas threatening to pierce his body.
Full Account w/ images:
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/half-ejected-6-needed-irish-luck.html
Well he'll never forget that! The other side of this is the excellent performance of the pilot after the incident, definitely a very good and highly trained pilot. I'd be willing to bet that the incident is not something that has ever been programmed into a flight simulator.
"Although the cost must have been considerable. I bet a replacement Rafaele cockpit canopy and ejection seat doesn't come cheap."
I'm sure the vendor requesting the "joy" ride will be getting a bill from the air force for the cost of same.
...which expense will be rolled into their next government contract.
...which will eventually be paid by the French taxpayers.
Plus ça change...
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There's obviously a lot of information that wasn't communicated. How to properly dress up for the flight, alerting the crew and pilot that it was a newb they were taking charge of, crew not checking for proper attire and not getting him strapped in right, pilot not checking that everyone else's check resulted in a situation where the flight could take place.
And now we learn that the doctor had specifically forbidden negative Gs.
That's one hell of a string of failures, and L'Armée de l'Air can thank its lucky stars that they didn't lose a plane in this fiasco, not to mention have anyone killed.
If I were the commanding general in charge, I swear that there would be a few demotions in order.
>If I were the commanding general in charge, I swear that there would be a few demotions in order.
A number of gallic shrugs have been implemented
Of course if this was the USAF it would have led to many 1000s of Powerpoint presentations
The RAF would have initially blamed the crew, then when it was discovered they were inconveniently all alive, it would have been classified and never spoken of again
Pretty much every major incident results from one hell of a string of failures. Most organisations run at the very edge of safety without realising it, because even if a hazard is identified, every time they get away with it they assume it's less hazardous than they thought. Examples include both shuttle accidents, the Chernobyl explosion, Piper Alpha, the 2017 Equifax breach and many more. In each case a multitude of known or clearly identifiable hazards finally combined to trigger a major incident. What you take for granted eventually kills you.
I knew a Mirage pilot who, on a training exercise, had his plane cleft in twain by a colleague - flew right through his Mirage apparently. He "pulled the Bang Seat" as so eloquently written by the El Reg scribe, but unfortunately something went wrong with the mechanism to blow the canopy, and so he and the seat went through it. He was left for dead on landing, but showed signs of life at the hospital. He was there for 6 months. He came out pretty physically damaged but my goodness, his mind was, and probably still is, what one would expect a combat pilot's mind to be. Working with him was both a joy and a lesson in one's own inadequacy.
There are plenty of aircraft ejection systems where the seat is intended to break the canopy and some where it is the fall-back option if canopy ejection or canopy fragmentation (by small explosive charges in those wavy lines you see) fail. For a blurry bureaucratic report see https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP75B00285R000400170001-9.pdf. Or the Martin-Baker website.
Never seen a "chest-high" ejection trigger - there's the ones on top for negative gee situations (double ring above the head) and the ones between the legs and on the side of the seat but chest-high?
(Trained on Martin Baker seats when working at BAe "just in case" - anyone would think trusting PFYs near multi-million pound combat aircraft might have undesired consequences...)
Page 23 of the document has photos of a big friendly looking ring between the legs.
If I was in that plane, with no idea what all the bits were, entering negative G and not being well strapped in, I wouldn't put my arms up either. I'd be frantically looking for something to hold on to. Like that big friendly ring that just looks so much like "notice me! I'm something you can hold on with".
It's a funny story, but one that describes an entire catalogue of cockups. Think how different the story would be if the plane was malfunctioning and the pilots were going to guide it away from buildings before punching out, only to have one of them die because the system that ejects both pilots had failed.
Many years ago, back when I worked in the defense industry, I read a long article in Jane's about ejection seats. Part of the article discussed the design requirements for ejection seats and the acceptable rate for an eject causing injuries like broken limbs and compression fractures of vertebra. The "acceptable" serious injury rate was pretty high.
Getting the occupant of the seat (it might be the RCO instead of the pilot) to an acceptable altitude doesn't only depend on G forces, duration of burn has also something to do with it. The reason for the at least initially rather high G forces is to minimize the time the body passes the edges of the frame, as on one side the air is moving along with the plane and on the other it can be passing with Mach 2. Moving slowly through that differential can kill.
Moving slowly through that differential can kill.
I certainly didn't mean to imply that there weren't good reasons behind the decision to accept a "high" risk of serious injury. When the alternative is certain death, a broken arm doesn't sound so bad...
I suppose that depending on the empennage configuration, there might also be a large metal "blade" that continues moving forward towards you at high speed as the air around you works very hard to stop your forward motion. If you do the math, that may not actually be a serious consideration compared to other issues.
A friend was in the fleet air arm and something broke while flying one day and he ejected at 600kts and only survived because a local fishing boat managed to catch the top of his chute before it went completely under the Med. Quite a lot of him was broken in the incident.
Also, if you're pulling the Bang Seat handle, it's presumed that either hostile ordnance is incoming at mach 10 or something and your countermeasures have failed; or that hostile fire has shot the plane up so badly it is going to commence unplanned rapid lithobraking in very short order; or else that some kind of mechanical fault so severe that unplanned rapid lithobraking will commence in short order regardless of incoming fire or not.
In that case, it's triage medicine: do you want to be fucked-up for the rest of a hopefully long life, or do you want to be perfectly healthy for the rest of a life measured meaningfully in seconds? They tend to err on the side of unassing the plane with as much swiftness as is literally humanly survivable.
My understanding is that before you get to ride in military aircraft, it's customary to have a physical and a preflight briefing, which goes over things that you can expect to happen, and things that you may and may NOT touch. The yellow and black striped handles, and the consequences of pulling them, should most definitely have been discussed.
For obvious reasons the force required is set quite high to stop simple accidents, on the basis that when you really need to pull it you'll be motivated to do it as hard as you can until something happens.
On another note it's surprisingly easy to snap the steel cables inside the handles when you give them a suitable yank.
The sad thing with this story is that it's far from the first time someone has had a problem during a joy ride due to a long chain of carelessness, and also not the first time that things could have ended in an even worse way if not for a random event as things went wrong. At least they survived. I bet after the enquiry some were really feeling sorry for themselves.
"For obvious reasons the force required is set quite high to stop simple accidents, on the basis that when you really need to pull it you'll be motivated to do it as hard as you can until something happens."
Well, if he was grabbing it to hold himself down during negative Gs, there's him pulling upwards on the handle, while his mass (and anything he's holding onto) is ALSO being accelerated upward.
Oopsie.
It's poor judgement to give anyone a present that is not in line with their own needs/wishes/preferences just because you think it would be a fun thing to have (especially, but not solely in retirement)*
It's poor judgement to let a civilian ( in the broadest sense) anywhere near complex, dangerous and expensive equipment without a full, careful and tested set of safety arrangements.
It's poor judgement to put someone in a thrilling experience without setting limits.
It's poor judgement to treat an unusual circumstance as if it's a routine one.
It's poor judgement to treat an outsider with the same degree of casual disregard you would with someone who knows the ropes and above all...
It's poor judgement to do a favour in risky locations or circumstances without actually preparing fully from the start - arguably even before it's agreed.
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* Yes that is a personal one. Much of my childhood was being given unwanted gifts by people who thought it was something I ought to want and having to gratefully be thankful for something I hated. Because that was the Polite Thing To Do. Even though it meant that I'd get something even more appalling the following year - while all my friends got fun stuff. Even when they asked me what I wanted they'd only buy stuff they thought I ought to have wanted. And it wasn't even anything particularly outrageous. Ordinary kids' books would have done me - I sometimes suggested books, but I'd get given something dull, worthy and unreadable -or a colouring book at the opposite extreme. And 50 years on I still hold a grudge. </rant>
I remember a 1980 incident at an open house/airshow at Willow Grove Naval Air Station in the US many years ago. A 7-year-old was allowed to sit in the cockpit of a (parked) jet fighter. Unfortunately, the ground crew had not safetied the ejection seat system. When the boy grabbed the wrong handle, he was ejected through the canopy. He did not survive.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2199&dat=19800707&id=HpcyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=gucFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4108,1220581&hl=en
Lots of us would love to hop in a fighter and possibly pass out in the process, having watched Top Gun and loving fighters in a general sense.
They found the one guy on the planet that works for a defense contractor that wasn't so much into it. What are the odds?
On the other hand, no pun intended, this is not the first time a "passenger" used the ejection handle as oh-shit handle. Lore says a new air-boss for a carrier was strapped to the RIO seat of a F-14, the pilot did some "standard maneuvers" that include an aileron roll, and, basically, the pilot's boss grabbed the "NOPE" bar and left him there to land a now-convertible Tomcat back on the carrier.
The F-14 is not designed to fire both seats upon ejection, IIRC. And, that is a few million dollars worth of airplanes in both cases that were not written off.
The aviation geek part of me both applauds the pilot for landing under such conditions and while there is a visceral thrill in reading this, i do feel bad for the aircraft damage (even though it will get repaired)
The process oriented side of me is rather stunned to read of the series of cockups - civ pensioner passenger not briefed, not checked for being correctly oriented and strapped in - both resulting in an ejection seat fire (which is a giant fuck me moment at even this best of times not over hostile territory, not having been recently assholed by a SAM), and then the pilot's seat not firing either on top of that.
Thankfully, said pensioner landed ok (hopefully without breaking anything - untrained first-timer under canopy isn't really safe, and that's not even accounting for the compression forces of ejection - but hey at least he didn't break/lose a limb during the violent ejection process)
Way to go, French Air Force - you're just begging for jokes to be made (alluding to, you know, the war...)
Will interesting to see the ramifications of the failure.
That product is probably fitted to a lot of aircraft across the planet.
And as a safety critical system, the probability of failure should be effectively zero.
That a modern multi-million pound fighter aircraft wasn't written off as a result of poor reliability, is not mitigation.
Page 26, blue border : "L’hypothèse d’une action volontaire sur la poignée d’éjection par le passager est rejetée. "
Roughly translated - not needed I think :) All the English words in the translation would be very similar to the ones in the french sentence. Apart from Handle. Which I let you handle. Unlike the passenger, who did not handle it.
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