5 ms·

He did the right thing. He's alive and well, fired from his command instead of deceased like the other servicemen in the OV-22 and FA-18D.

by petre 2y ago

GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
The jet was fine, it kept flying for 64 miles. He probably ejected because there had been a recent osprey crash with causalities and he was scared.
- fragmede 2y ago
  64 miles sounds quite far, and I've gone quite fast on my motorcycle, but the top speed of the F-35B (that they tell us) is 1,200 mph. At that speed that's just over 3 minutes.
  - ExoticPearTree 2y ago
    According to the report, the jet flew for at least 11 more minutes. No one flies fighter jets at max speed unless absolutely necessary.
    - fragmede 2y ago
      That's still a decent ground speed of 350 mph! Never gotten my bike to go quite that fast
      - HPsquared 2y ago
        I assume you also don't go max speed on your bike 99.9% of the time. (EDIT: this depends what kind of bike we're talking about I suppose)
        fragmede 2y ago
        Why else go to the track‽
  - jyounker 2y ago
    But it didn't land itself, unlike the cornfield bomber: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber
  - ayewo 2y ago
    From the article: > The jet had flown for 11 minutes and 21 seconds after Del Pizzo’s ejection, slowly climbing as high as 9,300 feet. After about 11 minutes, the report said, the jet banked down and started descending to its right, clipping the treetops of a forest along the way before crashing. The report said no one was injured by the crash, but it did damage several trees and crops. The $100 million jet was shredded into pieces and a total loss.
    - xeonmc 2y ago
      To shreds you say? Well how were the trees? To shreds you say?
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
    3 minutes is an eternity for something like a jet. If a car drove at highway speed for 3 minutes without crashing after the driver jumped out, you'd be impressed too.
- stavros 2y ago
  "The jet kept flying for 64 miles" and "the jet was fine" are WILDLY different things.
  - close04 2y ago
    "The jet was not 100% fine" and "the jet was 100% unflyable" are WILDLY different things. The question to ask in this case is "would the pilot's presence in the cockpit have made a difference to the possible outcome?". In my reading of the article the jet could be controlled, and the pilot had access to the backup displays and communication systems. The plane flying such a long distance means the pilot reacted poorly under pressure and did the bare minimum as per the unclear procedures, before catering to his own safety. While not wrong according to the unclear procedure, you want more from someone commanding a squadron. The pilot could have stayed put at the very least to attempt to mitigate the impact (pun intended) of the eventual crash, if not to actually land the plane using the backup instruments before ejecting to safety. That plane crash could have easily been a tragedy.
  - ARandomerDude 2y ago
    Yes, for a Cessna or a 737. Not for a modern fighter.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  When an user reports buggy or glitchy behaviour I usually don't write it off as cowardice. I had the same problem in the auto industry. Some times the test drivers were accused of imagining things or sabotaging when the problem could not be recreated.
  - close04 2y ago
    When your software crashes in a house it hopefully doesn't kill the whole family. Comparing the expectations from a pilot and squadron commander to a random user of a random software doesn't do any favors to the pilot and suggests you misunderstand the magnitude of the difference. Even in the follow-up anecdote from the auto industry, a car test driver has vastly different profile than this pilot. They inherently work with untested vehicles and software, where the manual was not yet written. This pilot just followed the broadest interpretation of an existing manual.
    - cwillu 2y ago
      He compared it to test drivers reporting faults in automotive software, not random software running on a pc.
- Vecr 2y ago
  The map is not the territory. Unless you can convincingly explain how your map would have been better in the situation, and together with his apparent dislike of dying would still have had you stick with the aircraft, he shouldn't be blamed.
cwillu 2y ago
“Better to die than to look bad” is one of the more toxic sayings associated with military aviation.
- close04 2y ago
  Nothing in the incident report suggests the pilot's life was at any point in imminent danger, with the backup instruments functioning, and the plane being flyable. He "technically" did well to eject only because the manual was too vague. But at the very least "I could have done more but technically didn't have to" is not what you're looking for in a squadron commander. Which is why he's still allowed to fly (he follows the manual) but not trusted with more than that (because those extras are not in the manual).
  - conradfr 2y ago
    Maybe this pilot did not have the upmost faith in this aircraft.
  - gambiting 2y ago
    Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but I imagine the most straightforward explanation is the correct one - he ejected because he didn't feel safe flying this aircaft anymore. I cannot possibly imagine that any pilot would eject from an aircraft they felt comfortable flying, given that actually ejection is horrifically dangerous and is very likely to maim or kill you, with most pilots unable to return to active duty after ejecting. He wasn't sitting there going "well the plane is flying fine, but the manual says to eject so off I go I guess".
    - bluGill 2y ago
      Ejecting from a plane is dangerous. If you have control of the plane then you should be looking to do an emergency landing - there are typically acceptable landing places all over that can get you safely to the ground. I don't know how much control he really had, but it sounds like he had enough to land.
  - bumby 2y ago

He did the right thing. He's alive and well, fired from his command instead of deceased like the other servicemen in the OV-22 and FA-18D.

by petre 2y ago

He did the right thing. He's alive and well, fired from his command instead of deceased like the other servicemen in the OV-22 and FA-18D.

GaryNumanVevo 2y ago

The jet was fine, it kept flying for 64 miles. He probably ejected because there had been a recent osprey crash with causalities and he was scared.

fragmede 2y ago
64 miles sounds quite far, and I've gone quite fast on my motorcycle, but the top speed of the F-35B (that they tell us) is 1,200 mph. At that speed that's just over 3 minutes.
- ExoticPearTree 2y ago
  According to the report, the jet flew for at least 11 more minutes. No one flies fighter jets at max speed unless absolutely necessary.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    That's still a decent ground speed of 350 mph! Never gotten my bike to go quite that fast
    - HPsquared 2y ago
      I assume you also don't go max speed on your bike 99.9% of the time. (EDIT: this depends what kind of bike we're talking about I suppose)
      - fragmede 2y ago
        Why else go to the track‽
- jyounker 2y ago
  But it didn't land itself, unlike the cornfield bomber: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornfield_Bomber
- ayewo 2y ago
  From the article: > The jet had flown for 11 minutes and 21 seconds after Del Pizzo’s ejection, slowly climbing as high as 9,300 feet. After about 11 minutes, the report said, the jet banked down and started descending to its right, clipping the treetops of a forest along the way before crashing. The report said no one was injured by the crash, but it did damage several trees and crops. The $100 million jet was shredded into pieces and a total loss.
  - xeonmc 2y ago
    To shreds you say? Well how were the trees? To shreds you say?
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
  3 minutes is an eternity for something like a jet. If a car drove at highway speed for 3 minutes without crashing after the driver jumped out, you'd be impressed too.
stavros 2y ago
"The jet kept flying for 64 miles" and "the jet was fine" are WILDLY different things.
- close04 2y ago
  "The jet was not 100% fine" and "the jet was 100% unflyable" are WILDLY different things. The question to ask in this case is "would the pilot's presence in the cockpit have made a difference to the possible outcome?". In my reading of the article the jet could be controlled, and the pilot had access to the backup displays and communication systems. The plane flying such a long distance means the pilot reacted poorly under pressure and did the bare minimum as per the unclear procedures, before catering to his own safety. While not wrong according to the unclear procedure, you want more from someone commanding a squadron. The pilot could have stayed put at the very least to attempt to mitigate the impact (pun intended) of the eventual crash, if not to actually land the plane using the backup instruments before ejecting to safety. That plane crash could have easily been a tragedy.
- ARandomerDude 2y ago
  Yes, for a Cessna or a 737. Not for a modern fighter.
rightbyte 2y ago
When an user reports buggy or glitchy behaviour I usually don't write it off as cowardice. I had the same problem in the auto industry. Some times the test drivers were accused of imagining things or sabotaging when the problem could not be recreated.
- close04 2y ago
  When your software crashes in a house it hopefully doesn't kill the whole family. Comparing the expectations from a pilot and squadron commander to a random user of a random software doesn't do any favors to the pilot and suggests you misunderstand the magnitude of the difference. Even in the follow-up anecdote from the auto industry, a car test driver has vastly different profile than this pilot. They inherently work with untested vehicles and software, where the manual was not yet written. This pilot just followed the broadest interpretation of an existing manual.
  - cwillu 2y ago
    He compared it to test drivers reporting faults in automotive software, not random software running on a pc.
Vecr 2y ago
The map is not the territory. Unless you can convincingly explain how your map would have been better in the situation, and together with his apparent dislike of dying would still have had you stick with the aircraft, he shouldn't be blamed.

cwillu 2y ago

“Better to die than to look bad” is one of the more toxic sayings associated with military aviation.

close04 2y ago
Nothing in the incident report suggests the pilot's life was at any point in imminent danger, with the backup instruments functioning, and the plane being flyable. He "technically" did well to eject only because the manual was too vague. But at the very least "I could have done more but technically didn't have to" is not what you're looking for in a squadron commander. Which is why he's still allowed to fly (he follows the manual) but not trusted with more than that (because those extras are not in the manual).
- conradfr 2y ago
  Maybe this pilot did not have the upmost faith in this aircraft.
- gambiting 2y ago
  Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but I imagine the most straightforward explanation is the correct one - he ejected because he didn't feel safe flying this aircaft anymore. I cannot possibly imagine that any pilot would eject from an aircraft they felt comfortable flying, given that actually ejection is horrifically dangerous and is very likely to maim or kill you, with most pilots unable to return to active duty after ejecting. He wasn't sitting there going "well the plane is flying fine, but the manual says to eject so off I go I guess".
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Ejecting from a plane is dangerous. If you have control of the plane then you should be looking to do an emergency landing - there are typically acceptable landing places all over that can get you safely to the ground. I don't know how much control he really had, but it sounds like he had enough to land.
- bumby 2y ago