Passenger injury and ejector seat madness

Have you ever been told not to push that button? If so, you'll know that without someone explaining the reasons behind the prohibitive order it is almost impossible to resist. In fact, as a natural contrarian, even if the reasons are explained I still find it difficult to resist; like the time when I was six and my grandmother told me not to pull the inner lever on the door of her early model Honda Civic. Inevitably, I did, and tumbled head first out the car with nothing to harness me but an oversized seatbelt - it's a wonder I didn't suffer serious passenger injury.

I can only speculate that similar curiosity might have something to do with this week's rather more high profile near-miss in which a man "accidentally ejected himself" from the rear cockpit of an aircraft belonging to one of the world's top air display teams, South Africa's Silver Falcons.

Although plane accident investigators are yet to complete their report into the causes of the crash, what we know of the incident certainly makes for compelling reading.

Last Wednesday, the paying passenger, after being briefed on air safety, was being twirled, climbed, dived and loop-the-looped at tens of thousands of feet when, presumably, he felt it impossible to resist pulling the ejector seat lever, causing himself to be rocketed a further 100 metres into the sky, before descending to the ground by parachute and being returned to base by helicopter.

As it is a matter of course for the workings of cockpit controls to be explained to even the most seasoned of fliers, I can only assume that the passenger had received a full safety briefing. It certainly seems that this was the case. But if not, there may well be will be strong grounds for a possible no win, no fee claim, although it would be for psychological injury rather any physical passenger injury.

A retired SAAF instructor explains, "We train for this and if you don't get it right, and are not in the correct ejection posture, you can sustain severe spinal cord injuries or even worse."

"All it takes is for the firing handle to be pulled up about 2.5cm and you're on your way out."

"You get one almighty kick under the backside and then you're gone. The seat separates from the pilot automatically and the chute opens. This is in case the pilot is incapacitated during the ejection."

The same retired pilot said that the only circumstance in which a passenger would have cause to employ the ejector seat mechanism would be in the event the pilot became incapacitated or called "Eject, eject, eject".

I don't know perhaps there was some misunderstanding. Could the pilot have been Irish and on noticing that his passenger had his hands rested on the lever called out "Don't touch it! You Eejit, eejit, eejit!"

One can't be sure. One thing I am sure of, however, is that I'm glad the man in question has, as far as I know, never been anywhere near a nuclear button - in such a circumstance passenger injury would be the least of the world's worries.

As for the rest of us, you'd never do anything so stupid would you? Well, why don't you prove it?


Can I claim?