I’m guessing from what is revealed in this report, the Armée de l’air will be far more reluctant to allow unqualified individuals to get into their fighter aircraft in future:
The Rafale-B that was damaged during the accidental passenger ejection in March 2019.
Image from Bureau enquêtes accidents pour la sécurité de l’aéronautique d’État, BEA-A.
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 in March from a height of 2,500ft in March last year after grabbing his ejection seat handle to steady himself, France’s BEA-E aviation investigator concluded.
Although the BEA’s full report is in French [PDF], aviation news website Aerotime Hub translated and summarised its contents, revealing the full comedy of errors triggered by a group of enthusiastic colleagues hoping to give their workmate a send-off to remember.
[…] a mechanic gave them both a cursory check, strapped a Go-Pro to an approved bulkhead mounting point so the hapless passenger’s gurning would be preserved for all time, and nodded to the pilot to close the transparent cockpit canopies.
Things got worse when the pilot took off from northeastern France’s Saint-Dizier Robinson airbase. Rather than the gentle ascent at 10°-15° that airline passengers experience, the Frenchman at the Rafale’s controls carried out a typical fighter jet departure and “climbed at 47°, generating a load factor of around +4G. Then, as he levelled off, he subjected his passenger to a negative load factor of about -0.6G”.
Forces exerted by Britain’s most G-force-intensive roller coaster, Alton Towers’ Rita, max out at +4.7G – or four times the normal force of gravity.
Our pensioner, loose in his straps, not really wanting to be there and totally unused to being flung around like a rag doll, reached out to grab something and hang on for dear life. He picked the worst possible handhold: the trigger handle for the ejection seat. After the customary loud bang and whoosh he ceased to be part of the jet’s payload, with the force of the ejection tearing his unsecured helmet and mask from his face.
The Rafale-B’s command ejection system is meant to fire both seats if one of the crew pulls the handle. A very confused pilot, however, was still sitting in his newly canopy-free Rafale wondering what the hell had just happened. He returned to land, conscious all the time that the seat could fire at any moment without warning. Luckily, it didn’t go off.
Approximate reconstruction of the path of the Rafale-B leading up to and following the accidental ejection.
Image from Bureau enquêtes accidents pour la sécurité de l’aéronautique d’État, BEA-A.
