Pilot ejects milliseconds before Mig 29 Crash

This accident at the 1989 Paris Airshow caused some interest in the U.S. as the Zvezda K-36DM zero-zero ejection seat performed extremely well, and at the time some commentators said that a U.S. ejection in identical circumstances would probably have ended badly. As a result, a few years later, Zvezda was involved in a study in the U.S. with a view to supplying the USAF and U.S Navy (http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9905/27/t_t/ejection.seats/index.html) but in the end the contract went to Martin-Baker. In fact the pilot probably had a little luck on his side, it was either outside or on the very edge of the operating envelope of the seat, but this wasn't obvious at the time (the Soviets played it fairly cool).

A bird strike damaged the right hand engine causing an unrecoverable dive. The pilot, Anatoliy Kvochur, steered the jet away from spectators and then ejected 92m above ground. He landed a mere 30m from the wreckage, the ejection seat impacted right next to him. Kvochur was rushed to hospital, but was released the same day with nothing worse than bruises and a cut above his right eyebrow from the oxygen mask.

YouTube Description:

A short intro to the performance of the Mig 29 at the 1989 Paris Airshow, along with the infamous accident.It's worth noting that while Mig test pilots were lauded for the tail slide maneuver in 1989, Bob Hoover was doing tail slides in a Sabreliner (a business jet) for years before that.
oritteroposays...

It was a similar story on July 24th 1993 at Fairford, when two MiG-29s of the Russian Air Force Russian Swifts aerobatic team collided in mid-air and crashed, but safely away from the public. Incredibly no one was injured on the ground and both MiG-29 pilots (Alexander Beschastonov and Sergey Tresvyatsk) ejected from their aircraft. Aircraft investigators highlighted that pilot error was to blame where it was shown on video that one pilot had carried out a reverse loop and flew into clouds, whereas the other pilot lost visual contact with his wingman and aborted the display performance.


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