Reporter-News Archives

Friday, February 20, 1998

When to eject -- a pilot's difficult decision

By JIM O'CONNELL / Scripps Howard News Service

WASHINGTON -- When the engine of Navy Cmdr. David Strong's F-8 Crusader exploded above San Diego in 1985, he steered the crippled craft away from a residential area and ejected just before the plane slammed into an empty parking lot.

The decision on whether to eject, made in an instant amid terrifying conditions, carries life and death consequences for both the pilots and civilians on the ground.

Strong was hailed as a hero. But where a crippled plane crashes, either harmlessly into an open field or tragically into an occupied building, is often beyond the pilot's control, Strong said.

The issue of when to eject was highlighted Wednesday when a four-man crew ejected safely from a crippled B-1 B bomber in Kentucky. The 100-ton plane then reportedly traveled eight to 10 miles unguided before crashing in a fireball into a cow pasture.

The crew ejected at 20,000 feet, and wind may have pushed them away from the crash site, said Lt. Don Kerr, a spokesman at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas, where the B-1B was based. The plane also cruises at 6.5 miles per minute, so it wouldn't take long after ejection for the plane to travel eight to 10 miles before crashing, Kerr said.

"When they make the determination to exit the aircraft, the crew makes every effort to avoid populated areas, but there's no real way to train for that," Kerr said. "It's inherent in the training."

The military generally instructs pilots to eject if a plane falls below minimum air speed and altitude necessary to maintain flight. Many bases limit nearby residential development and maintain unpopulated bail-out areas where pilots can ditch their planes safely.

But there is no formal classroom or flight simulator training in steering a crippled plane away from populated areas, said Lt. Col. Alvina Mitchell, of the Air Education and Training Command at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas.

Once a plane has clearly lost its ability to fly, it's a pilot's "personal preference" on whether to linger and try to steer the plane away from potential victims, or eject and hope for the best, Strong said.

"Once you've determined that you aren't going to be able to control the airplane, nobody has a right to second guess you," said Strong, who ejected at about 250 feet and landed about 100 feet from the flaming wreckage.

Pilots usually eject only when the plane can no longer be controlled and remaining aboard to try to steer the plane would be useless, Strong said.

Last September, an Air Force pilot saw a part of the wing of his F-117A Nighthawk fall off during a flight at an air show near Baltimore. The pilot tried to turn toward the Chesapeake Bay, but home video showed the plane spinning out of control.

The pilot ejected just before the plane fell into a nearby neighborhood causing a fireball that engulfed one home, but injured no one.

It is a decision involving duty and honor made under intense pressure in a very short amount of time.

"It's definitely a judgment call made quickly while getting all sorts of input from the equipment," Mitchell said. "It's a very difficult situation, there's no easy way around it."

In 1996, an Air Force F-16 pilot ejected safely just before his plane crashed into a house in Pensacola, Fla., killing a 4-year-old child and severely injuring the child's mother.

But Mitchell prefers to recall an American pilot whose bravery in a similar situation saved English school children.

Mitchell said she was assigned to an air base in England in the 1970s when a U.S. Air Force pilot whose engine had stalled steered his crippled plane into an open field, narrowly avoiding a school.

Investigators decided that the pilot stayed in the jet, sacrificing his life, to avoid the school, Mitchell said.

Fortunately, it's a rare situation, Mitchell said. "Most people understand that they are much more likely to die in a car accident than from something falling out of the sky."

(Jim O'Connell is a reporter for Scripps Howard News Service.)