Hey, can all malfunctions be like that?

I think the best part of this story is the 'malfunction' mentioned at the end, seems like it probably saved a bundle of dough.

Man accidentally ejects himself from fighter jet during surprise flight | World news | The Guardian

Edit: I don't speak French. I'm not sure this says it was a malfunction really, just that the automatic sequence was interrupted in the last phase (after the front canopy section was blown, but before the front seat).

Quant au pilote, il reste à bord, la séquence d’éjection automatique s’étant interrompue à la dernière phase (annexe). Il est en mesure de piloter et poser l’avion sur la piste.

Maybe the pilot has an "um, nope, didn't really mean that" button?

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6836894/FRENCH-AIR-INVESTIGATION-REPORT.pdf

The 'annex' mentioned is just a pictorial illustration of the eject sequence.

Edit again: nope, really was a malfunction:

L’examen du siège avant montre que :

• seule la ligne pyrotechnique en provenance du sélecteur de séquence et à destination du système de rappel de harnais du siège a fonctionné. La partie siège en lien avec cette information pyrotechnique a fonctionné de manière optimale, et toutes les lignes pyrotechniques siège concernées par cette séquence ont fonctionné nominalement ;
• la ligne en provenance du sélecteur de séquence et à destination de l’initiateur de la cartouche principale du siège avant n’a pas fonctionné et est arrachée de son emplacement physique sur le corps du sélecteur de séquence. Le siège n’ayant pas reçu l’information pyrotechnique nécessaire à son éjection n’a donc pas fonctionné et toutes les lignes et équipements pyrotechniques du siège sont intègres (à l’exception du système de rappel de harnais cité supra);
• le système de découpe verrière ainsi que les centrales et lignes pyrotechniques afférentes ont fonctionné.

 

Yeah, sorry about that. It's like we get to see different subsets of the internet. I usually roll with javascript off, so the Guardian article pops right up for me, but gives you hoops to jump through. Meanwhile you get easy viewing of all the sites that only give me a cheery "hey there! you can't view me with javascript off!" message, to which I generally say "my goodness, you're right, I can't!" and click the back button.

Couple weird things about the CTV article, like it keeps saying "ejector button." It ain't a button, it's a big yellow/black loop that you yank, coming up through the seat:



So when the guy felt himself rising in the seat as the pilot came out of the climb, he grabbed it to hold himself down.

CTV article doesn't say much about my favorite part. Pulling that loop was supposed to start the full eject sequence for both seats. Almost the whole sequence happened. His canopy section blew. He ejected. Front canopy section blew. Next was for the pilot's seat to eject, but it malfunctioned and didn't. So he brought it in for a landing, avoided the loss of a fighter (possibly into a populated area) and nobody was seriously injured.

The passenger was probably pretty ticked at his buddies for the 'surprise' they arranged, but once over that, boy has he got a story for the grandkids.