In 2019, the ejectable seat of a civilian having taken place aboard a Rafale B for courtesy flight had started shortly after taking off from the Saint-Dizier air base. Although wounded by glass breakage from the glass roof, the pilot had been able to land without problem. A year later, the office investigations accidents for the security of state aeronautics [BEA–É] gave a report on the causes of this incident.
Thus, it turned out that the passenger in question – a framework of an armament company – had not been able to prepare to make such a flight – of work colleagues had wanted to surprise him – and that he had never expressed the desire to climb a fighting plane.
According to the Bea-é, the pilot started the flight with a “47 ° climb plate, generating a load factor neighboring +4 g” then by a landing causing a negative load factor of-0.6 g “.
Thus, “discovering the feeling of the negative load factor, the insufficiently sole and totally surprised passenger clings to the ejection handle and activates it involuntarily. During the ejection, the passenger loses his helmet and his canoe does not swell, “he had explained.
Fortunately, this civilian was left for a beautiful fear. As, a priori, the passenger of an F-15D of the 104th hunting squadron of the National Guard of Massachusetts [États-Unis]based in Westfield-Barnes. According to a video broadcast on August 13, its ejectable seat started while the plane was on the ground. And that when he had just made a “motivation flight”, as he arrives at the US Air Force to organize it when she wants to recognize the merits of soldiers or civilians.
The ejecting seat of the F-15D, of the Aces type and supplied by Collins Aerospace, is called “Zero-Zero”, that is to say that it allows an ejection even when an airplane is on the ground. In this case, he reached an altitude of several tens of meters before the opening of the main parachute and the seat/pilot separation.
Video and ATC from yesterday. The backseater of RAMBO 01 (F-15D 104th FW Massachusetts ANG) accidentally ejected while taxiing back after a alleged incentive flight at Westfield-Barnes Airport, MA
The backseater survived and the runway was shut down. You can see the cockpit… pic.twitter.com/9ZIAV9ENPl
— Thenewarea51 (@thenewarea51) August 14, 2025
On the images broadcast on social networks, we see this passenger crawling near the track, while the F-15 pilot [indicatif Rambo 01] signals his ejection to the base control of the base before declaring an “emergency on the ground”.
According to a press release from the 104th fighter squadron published by the specialized site The War Zone, one of the “soldiers was transported to a local hospital for exams and a security plan was put in place for all air operations”. And to ensure that “none of the two soldiers was injured”.
This type of incident is rare. However, in May 2024, an instructor pilot of the US Air Force lost his life after the untimely trigger of his ejecting seat while his plane-a Texan II T-6-had just landed. The investigation determined that a pectoral strap to have dissociated itself from its harness before hanging and activating the ejection handle.
Photo: screen copy