News: 1586445485

I am willing to bet ad he exited the aircraft the departing passenger experienced a second ejection.

The landing for the pilot must have been something of a brown trouser moment too.

Definitely a P&P (poop and pee) moment for the triple.

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.

Fortunately France has an excellent health service. Who knows what his future care options would have been in a state without socialised healthcare...

"in a state without socialised healthcare"

He would likely be ejected from hospital.

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).

Safety pins left in on the pilot's seat?

I'm betting he had a heartfelt discussion with his crew chief after he landed, if that was the case.

Not sure how you're reading pilot ejection into Chris G's comment, but the pilot's landing reference was to the pilot landing the aircraft afterwards, not under a parachute, and the 'second ejection' definitely didn't mean the pilot following the passenger.

It was still an "interesting" landing for the pilot. The canopy had been removed and he was aware that his own seat had presumably been armed and was only a loose wire away from ejecting him at any moment.

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.

"after accidentally grabbing bang seat* handle"

Ooh, la, la - That's Hot!

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.

Clouseau lives!

"strapped a Go-Pro to an approved bulkhead mounting point so the hapless passenger's gurning would be preserved for all time"

That quote cheered me up!

Did they publish the video?

... because no-one has died!

But, does this good luck outweighs all the bad decision making?

For a single incident, it clearly can. That doesn't mean that you should rely on it.

Fails all round here.

... because no-one has died!

But, does this good luck outweighs all the bad decision making?

Although the cost must have been considerable. I bet a replacement Rafaele cockpit canopy and ejection seat doesn't come cheap.

Given that ejection is not a zero-risk manouver at the best of times, very glad to hear everyone survived (and the plane landed safely). If he though the 4G+ ascent was bad enough, the shock of the ejection would have been worse....

Indeed -- cervical and lumber dislocations have sometimes happened to those not properly prepared.

"hoping to give their workmate a send-off to remember"

Some people are just impossible to get rid of.

Is The Register written by and for a set of PFYs?

No, at 64 I do not think I'd enjoy accidentally ejecting myself from a fighter jet. But I don't think my 34-year-old self would have enjoyed it, either.

> underwent a quick medical exam from a doctor

Missing from the reg article is the fact that the doctor okayed the flight on the condition of no negative G, information which apparently wasn't communicated to the pilot.

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.

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.

In the jet fighters I've sat in, it's between your legs.

And the one's I'm familiar with have a "grab handle" in front of them about chest high. This whole thing was a comedy (all most a tragedy) of errors. Seems from here, that a whole bunch of people didn't do their job properly.

but that was damn funny and just what I needed.

I would love to hear the co-pilots views on the incident but I may not be able to read the substitles.

Was the trip set up by people who will inherit when he dies?

His heir was a fly by night.

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.

I guess it is a compromise between too fierce ejection killing the pilot with excessive g forces and not ejecting him hard enough to get high enough for the parachute to slow him down enough if he ejects at very low altitude.

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.

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.

And what was he told? If you pull this, you get out of the plane? Might seem like a good idea for somebody enduring an unpleasant and uninvited situation.

Yeah, sure. You try remembering all those details when you're subject to an inverse Immelman you didn't ask for for the first time in your life.