Another Red Arrows Incident..
 

Poor bugger, not a nice way to go...

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/837...ing-from-plane

Sad to think that such a thing can happen. Life can change in an instant. One minute your cruising along enjoying life then out of the blue, disaster. Everyone's life around you changed forever.
Mind you if he survived without injury he would probably never live it down with his mates. They may say things like "do you want the ladder to get down or are you using the ejecting seat today"

2011 is going down in history as a really sad year for aviation enthusiasts.

RIP Sean Cunningham.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed...s-pilot-killed

So what exactly happened? He catapulted while on the ground and the parachute failed to deploy. Did he do it on purpose or did the catapult system go wrong? There was a bit that said "through the canopy". Really? Shuldn't it have been blown away?

It would seem that it was an 'inadvertent' ejection... i.e. the pilot did not initiate the sequence himself, it seems there was no emergency situation to warrant doing so, even in the event of a fire it is not recomended to eject on the ground, if it was inadvertent then it was likely a malfunction and that could mean the seat fired through the canopy because the fault may have been just in the seat rockets, that would explain things like parachutes not deploying too.

within that news link i find it strange how they termed him as a "stunt" pilot. RIP. (surely they all have military backgrounds) which doesnt equate to being a stunt pilot.

AFAIK on the Hawk you're shot through the canopy anyway, the explosive charges that run on the canopy are meant to destroy it before the ejection sequence starts.
It would be interesting to know whether the plane was parked, just returned from a flight or was about to go for one, since one of the first thing the ground crews normally do is disarming the ejector seat by means of the safety pins (there should be 3 or 4 of them?).

yes but that's what I was saying, if it was a malfunction then the MDC probably wasn't set off, it would also be apparent that the aircraft had either not begun taxying or had just parked up..I say this because the aircraft didn't continue uncontrolled....it just looked parked up...but the canopy was closed....just missing the front section of glass.

I used to work on the Mk.12 version of these seats, fitted to Harriers.

With all the safety pins in place, the seat is safe and cannot under any circumstances be ejected from the aircraft. So some of the pins, or all of them must have been removed. Also, I was told during my training that if the canopy MDC failed to initiate, the seat would push through the canopy regardless. The idea being, it's better to risk getting cut up by the canopy rather than simply crashing with the aircraft.

What has been reported (unconfirmed) in the UK is that the seat ejected while taxiing, but the parachute failed to deploy. Based on this infomation only it appears that some or all of the pins were out, and what has happened is a freak occurance. Initiated by the pilot or not, the drogue chute failed to deploy. If the drogue gun safety pin had been inadvertently left fitted, this could have the effect that has been reported.

Of course all this is speculation, but as I have actual experience of maintaining seats like the MK.10 it really made me wonder what might have gone wrong.

Here's a nice bit of info on the seat: Martin Baker - Mk.10

yeah, even if there's an MDC failure, you have spears on top of the seat which are supposed to break through, isn't it?