Red Arrows Pilot Accident?
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-15640104

Reports of refuelling incident, and/or ground ejection with parachute failure.

Not a great year :cry:

Oh man, not again...terrible news. They've had such a good record too.

Hope the pilot makes a full recovery.

Aye...let's hope they don't keep this trend up :-?
hopes for a full recovery of the pilot.

HunterICX

Confirmed dead! :cry:

RIP whoever it is.

Sadly the pilot has died.

Eyewitnesses report seeing a Hawk with a smashed canopy and hearing a loud bang. An mis-ejection perhaps? Too early to tell.
(EDIT) The RAF has confirmed a zero zero ejection. Perhaps a chute failure?


Irregardless, RIP to a fine pilot.

I thought the Hawk was designed to eject through the canopy, since it was used in a low altitude role. Still kinda rough on a pilot.

I think the Hawk has a zero zero system. The canopy also has an explosive egress system.

Yes, just checked, the Hawk is fitted with the Mark 10 Martin Baker seat which I do believe is zero zero, so either something went wrong with the seat or it happened in an enclosed area and the pilot hit the ceiling. Either way a tragic incident.

Judging by this pic from the Daily Fail the aircraft was outside when the ejection occurred so that rules out collision with ceiling.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/...68_634x361.jpg

Latest rumours at pprune are either a parachute fail or canopy explosives fail. I'd tend to lean towards the former.

I also found this poem on pprune in their thread, thought it apt:

Definitely not a good year for the Red Arrows.:-?

Quite probably a parachute failure....tragic :nope:

I don't know - squippers are meticulous in their work as lives really do depend on them, whereas the miniture detonation chord in the canopy can't be tested! My early money is on MDC failure.

Nice poem.

This is a real tragedy :(

RIP

why did he eject in the first place?

No reason I could see of that he would do it deliberately, and he probably wasn't exactly new to the cockpit of a jet aircraft so it's unlikely that he'd have pulled the lever by mistake. However, like Herr B says, the maintenance of the ejection seats is usually first rate, so chances are it could be a one in a million malfunction.

The red arrows have now been grounded pending a full investigation
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-15655865