When a Thunderbirds F-16 went down in the desert last December after an engine failure, the onboard 360 cameras kept rolling and provided Air Force investigators with a remarkable record of the event. The report was released earlier this week and stills from the recordings were included. They show the moment two fan blades separated from the engine, the ejection, the pilot under canopy, and the impact of the Viper. The pilot was doing a loop in a six-ship formation when the engine came apart. The pilot tried to save the aircraft but after four minutes of fighting with it he ejected about 400 feet AGL. The pilot was slightly injured in the ejection and was picked up by a rescue team within minutes of the incident.
One of the cameras was on the inside of the canopy behind the canopy and captured the whole ejection and crash sequence. There was also a backward facing camera and it got the flames coming out of the tailpipe as the engine cratered. The engine takes the blame for the crash. “I find, by a preponderance of the evidence, the cause of the mishap was three misaligned or turned variable vanes in the 4th and 5th stages of the MA engine, causing a 5th stage compressor blade and a 6th stage compressor blade to fracture and separate, resulting in catastrophic engine damage at low altitude with no ability to recover,” the lead investigator said in the report.
She, not he. It was Thunderbird 5.
400’ agl bailout is way too low. Don’t know Thunderbirds SOPs but I would bet that is way below the hard deck for an ejection.
Pretty sure that their ejection seats are 0/0 so long as they’re mostly level. So then it’s the pilot’s judgment on preserving safety on the ground and aiming for a workable recovery after ejecting.
When I was in, the out of control ejection minimum altitude was 10,000′, but, in this case, the failure occurred well below that and the aircraft was not out of control. Git while the gittin’s good.
Well done.
So is there an option? Ride it in and die, or take your chances? If you are descending at 10,000 feet per min then 400 feet isn’t going to work. For the most part rate of descent has everything to do with it.
Now if they were flying an F 86 that would be a different matter. They did not have the modern ejection seats that the modern fighters have which are amazing.
$33m must be the cheap stripped down model! Probably didn’t even have the cigarette lighter! I’m glad the pilot is safe. As long as you can get the vertical velocity close to zero stepping out at 400′ isn’t too bad. A bit higher might be preferred since you have more options if the survival gear doesn’t work as advertised.
Well done, bottles to the parachute packer!
a new member of the Martin-Baker club!
Collins club. If it’d been a Block 70/72 you’d have been right! 🙂
0/0 seats in the F-16. They can eject sitting on the ground not moving at all.