Airplane crash

[matt1]

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/ ... 585564007/

[jsf]

Saturday morning I heard an old plane fly over my house and it was sounding bad. The engine was mis-firing and it sounded like it was being shot at with constant banging noise. the engine was so loud I could hear it for miles. When I saw the story on the news last night I thought it was that plane but it turned out to be a jet and not a prop plane,

[BFSEsq]

I was driving with my kids up and then down Michigan Ave in the Canton Twp - Ypsi area near the airport, but we didn't realize anything had happened. A lot of people still assembled trying to watch likely didn't either. That was a surprise to hear. But apparently if you were close to Willow Run airport, you could see the fiery crash and smoke. Kind of scary. Good thing the pilots ejected into a lake and were fine.

[MWmetalhead]

One reportedly has serious injuries that are non life threatening.

[craig11152]

I guess it crashed in the parking lot of an apartment complex.
That got me wondering if there is any protocol whereby a pilot stays with the plane as long as needed to try to avoid civilian casualties. Even at his own demise.
I am not suggesting anything about this crash but more a general question about whether a pilot carries a moral duty to try to control the location of the crash?

[MWmetalhead]

I presume they did stay with the aircraft as long as humanly possible.

The aircraft in question was a Russian military aircraft built in 1981.

Doing maneuvers in one of those in the year 2023 seems like a terrible idea on its face, but I'm basing that statement strictly on gut feeling.

It's a miracle the jet didn't crash onto I-94.

The pilot collects Soviet made aircraft and is a commercial pilot for his day job, per channel 7.

Edit - more info:
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/ ... 590789007/

[sirrealone]

Soviet incompetence resulted in far more casualties than anything strategic they came up with.

[km1125]

I guess it crashed in the parking lot of an apartment complex.
That got me wondering if there is any protocol whereby a pilot stays with the plane as long as needed to try to avoid civilian casualties. Even at his own demise.
I am not suggesting anything about this crash but more a general question about whether a pilot carries a moral duty to try to control the location of the crash?

There's some interesting drone video (I think on WXYZ) showed where the jet impacted earth and then travelled about 500 ft before coming to a rest just short of the apartment building.

In all the pilots I've talked to, that is a consideration if the situation allows, but unless you really ride the plane all the way down to the ground then you don't really know where it's going to end up. Once you leave the plane it can veer (even slightly) left or right and land 1000's of feet away from where it was pointed. In some cases the reason they're ejecting at all is because they don't have control of the plane to begin with and you might only just have seconds left to save your own life and that of anyone else on board. In this case if that plane had rolled and they ejected they likely would not have survived, as the ejection seats would have fired towards the ground and there would not have been time for the parachutes to slow them down prior to impact. As it was, they were pretty banged up.

[MWmetalhead]

Evidently, there was disagreement between the pilot and co-pilot regarding ejection. The backseat co-pilot is the one who engaged the ejection lever. The pilot (and aircraft owner) did not feel ejection was necessary at the time.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/ ... 689088007/

[mr v]

Watching the video it appears the pilot was still flying the plane, it was turning slightly and starting to elevate when they ejected.

[km1125]

It frequently is the 'back-seater' who initiates the ejection, so that the pilot can focus on flying the plane (if still possible). But, it's almost always with the pilots agreement/acknowledgement that ejection is necessary. In some planes the back-seater has no controls to fly, nor has all the indicators to know what's going on with the engines.

It'll be interesting to see the final report(s). This is the first time I've seen that showed the engines were still running (but maybe not both) and that the issue was more with the afterburners which are not required for normal flight.

Ejections are really violent on the body. You can experience ~20G forces being ejected, and there was a period of time in the USAF if you experienced just two ejections you were no longer qualified for flight, as the spinal compressions were thought too severe.