US Fighter Jet Crashes in s. Iraq; Pilot Ejects Safely

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter plane crashed on Thursday southwest of Baghdad, but the pilot managed to eject safely, U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

The cause of the crash was under investigation, it said. The pilot was rescued about an hour after the plane came down and taken to a medical facility for treatment.

"The aircraft was flying from a forward-deployed air base in Southwest Asia supporting operations in Iraq."

I have heard horror stories about knees striking the instrument panel and many torn tendons in the neck and even broken backs during ejection.

While those can still happen, those sorts of problems were much more common with the older style of ejection seats. The newer rocket powered seats don't whack you nearly as hard. Additionaly they have lanyards that pull in the occupants legs to prevent them striking the instrument panel. While still not a ride in the park (Unless you mean the Six Flags from Hell), serious injuries are pretty infrequent these days. From the ejection itself that is.

I've got a 3 picture sequence of two Mig-29s from a Russian flight demonstration team (similar to Blue Angels or Thunderbirds) where one clipped the other just aft of the cockpit. The first shot is right after the collision, with debrie flying all over, but no fire, in the second shot the area of the struck aircraft aft of the strike is a ball of fire and the part forward is bent down almost 90 degrees, but the pilot can be seen still in the cockpit and the canopy is still intact. In the third shot, the aircraft has rolled about 90 degrees, is still fully in flames, but the seat with the pilot in it, is headed off in the original direction of flight. Both pilots walked away from their parachute landings, IIRC.

Older seats used what amounted to an artillery shell to blast the seat out of the aircraft, which is where alot of the back and neck injuries occurred. Newer seats use rockets, which "shove" rather than "kick" the seat out, and are gyro stablished to allow for any attitude ejection. There's a video clip about of a pilot ejecting from another Mig-29 at LeBourget in France. He had stuck with the aircraft way too long, in part to avoid the crowd, he was almost inverted and only a few hundred feet up when he ejected. The seat went down, and then up, kicked him out of the seat, his 'chute opened, and swang 1/2 swing before he hit the ground.

Worst ejection clip I ever saw was two guys ejecting from a QF-4, at an airshow. They ejected forward, the aircraft crashed right under and in front of them and their trajectory carried them into the fireball, before their 'chutes even opened.

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