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Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

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Ghost from above
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Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by Ghost from above » Sat Mar 23, 2019 9:15 pm

60 year old civilian passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale on take off.

Oooops a lot of paperwork to fill in!


Full article here
https://airlinerwatch.com/passenger-eje ... n-takeoff/
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Nighthawke
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Re: Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by Nighthawke » Sat Mar 23, 2019 11:23 pm

Hope he recovers ok with no serious lasting effects.

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Thunder
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Re: Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by Thunder » Sun Mar 24, 2019 12:24 am

Someone will be collecting their pension sooner than they though they would.

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steamy
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Re: Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by steamy » Sun Mar 24, 2019 12:25 am

probably had the time of his life
5cabaa953bd37c3e357e779bb82aa195eda3b2afa2bdd19594a7162c4f7497be

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seven
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Re: Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by seven » Sun Mar 24, 2019 10:43 am

Err, no. Ejecting from any aircraft is not a pleasant experience no matter how keen a masochist they may be!
#KeepFightingMichael #banthebulls

Drinkmat
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Re: Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by Drinkmat » Tue Mar 26, 2019 5:25 pm

If it wasn't an emergency ejection, the chap doesn't even qualify for the Martin Baker Tie Club. Bummer.

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Ghost from above
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Re: Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by Ghost from above » Wed Apr 08, 2020 9:35 pm

Report in on the causes and effect of the rear seat ejection.
Seems that due to the passenger strapping himself in and not tightly when after take off the pilot levelled out and negative G came on he tried to brace himself with the ejection handle and initiated the ejection.Ooops.Luckily due to a fault the automatic ejection of the pilot didn't happen.The subsequent technical investigation found that the explosion ruptured the casing of the sequence selector supposed to trigger the pilot ejection seat.
That pilot must have been one cool cucumber to squawk the emergency and then land whilst strapped to a seat that could have initiated at any time.Proper brown pants moment.

Full article here
https://www.aerotime.aero/clement.charp ... n-incident
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mirage41
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Re: Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by mirage41 » Wed Apr 08, 2020 10:29 pm

My understanding is that the auto eject is controlled by the front seat, and only when selected. Further, it never works the other way round - i.e. Captain can eject both, but passenger can't.

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Ghost from above
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Re: Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by Ghost from above » Thu Apr 09, 2020 7:00 am

Yes and no .Yes it is selected from the front but No in this case the cockpit switch was set to common allowing either the pilot or rear seat to initiate the ejection.
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reheat module
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Re: Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by reheat module » Thu Apr 09, 2020 7:09 am

mirage41 wrote:
Wed Apr 08, 2020 10:29 pm
My understanding is that the auto eject is controlled by the front seat, and only when selected. Further, it never works the other way round - i.e. Captain can eject both, but passenger can't.
What happens if the rear seater believes the pilot to be incapacitated, and fails to respond to the set emergency challenges...?
UK ONS CPI Rate checker for Sept every year... :whistle:

Richard E
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Re: Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by Richard E » Thu Apr 09, 2020 8:22 am

reheat module wrote:
Thu Apr 09, 2020 7:09 am
mirage41 wrote:
Wed Apr 08, 2020 10:29 pm
My understanding is that the auto eject is controlled by the front seat, and only when selected. Further, it never works the other way round - i.e. Captain can eject both, but passenger can't.
What happens if the rear seater believes the pilot to be incapacitated, and fails to respond to the set emergency challenges...?
Sadly the back seater may have to make the difficult decision to save himself/herself: Phantom FGR Mk.2 XT908 was lost in an accident on 9 January 1989 when the aircraft's pilot was incapacitated during a training flight: http://www.ukserials.com/pdflosses/maas ... _xt908.pdf

Vulcanone
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Re: Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by Vulcanone » Thu Apr 09, 2020 11:07 am

The unfortunate incident happened last year

TomG
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Re: Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by TomG » Thu Apr 09, 2020 12:00 pm

Ghost from above wrote:
Thu Apr 09, 2020 7:00 am
Yes and no .Yes it is selected from the front but No in this case the cockpit switch was set to common allowing either the pilot or rear seat to initiate the ejection.
Dependant on aircraft type. Tornado for example has the Command Eject Controller located in the rear cockpit; the setting on the CEC will determine who is ejected and sequence of ejection which in itself is determined by who initiated the ejection i.e. Pilot or Nav/WSO.

SPERX
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Re: Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by SPERX » Thu Apr 09, 2020 7:43 pm

mirage41 wrote:
Wed Apr 08, 2020 10:29 pm
My understanding is that the auto eject is controlled by the front seat, and only when selected. Further, it never works the other way round - i.e. Captain can eject both, but passenger can't.
If the precis of the accident report posted by Tim Davies at FastJet Performance is to be believed, the Rafale system should have ejected both, and failed to eject the pilot of the incident aircraft when, had it worked as designed, it should have done. Lucky save of a jet but scary if it had been a life or death ejection.

I know the UK Hawk system is selectable but not sure about others. I always assumed that the rationale behind the Hawk set up was that a rear seat instructor could choose to remain if a front seat student left, say after a birdstrike. I seem to recall that on my one Hawk pax trip it was either the front seat pilot initiating both of us or me going on my own; but it was a long time ago and my memory of that kind of detail is poor. There was one allegedly inadvertent ejection from a Hawk by a Fighter Controller on a back seat trip which suggests a back seater could leave independently.

Very early on we had the two dreadful Tornado GR1 episodes whereby Navs had to abandon aircraft with incapacitated pilots - in neither case were the Navs able to eject their pilots.
They can call it what they want
BUT ITS NOT A PROPER LIGHTNING

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The Phantom
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Re: Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by The Phantom » Fri Apr 10, 2020 7:24 am

Blimey that makes for sorry reading!

He didn't want to do the flight.
He had no checks on his equipment - which meant his G-trousers were on incorrect; his oxygen supply was incorrect; his helmet was on incorrect (and came off during ejection!); and he wasn't strapped in properly! But apart from that everything was fine!!

Also you'd have to question the stupidity of having the ejection system set up so that the pilot's seat is ejected when the handle is pulled in the rear of the plane (which thanks to malfunction never happened!)
I can understand that system being in use when you have a qualified pilot in the rear; but for a civilian to be sat there - knowing the history of false ejections from civilians in the back of fighter jets - it seems incredible that they can be in a position where they can eject themselves and the pilot out of a perfectly good plane and write the aircraft off.

raameagle
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Re: Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by raameagle » Fri Apr 10, 2020 10:55 am

I had a flight in a Hawk T.2 in 2016 and I was able to eject myself from the rear seat if necessary leaving the pilot sat up front or he could eject us both if required.
As for the seat selection setup in the Rafale in question, given the rest of the complacency that’s emerging it is no surprise at all that the correct seat selection for a ‘pax flight’ was missed too.
Regards
Mark

Vulcan74
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Re: Passenger accidentally ejects from Rafale

Post by Vulcan74 » Wed Apr 22, 2020 5:06 pm

Should have gone to specsavers!!

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