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Comment by scarier | Hacker News Reader

It’s wild that the ejection sequence failed. Some two-seat aircraft have a “forward both, aft self” ejection mode for these types of events where you don’t trust the guy in the back to make good ejection decisions, and I originally assumed that was what happened here. Oops.

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> the first ejection damaged the front seat, such that it didn't eject

This as well -- fairly damning evidence of failures in design and/or manufacturing. Fortunate that the extemporaneous round of belated testing happened over friendly territory!

The post-incident report found a design flaw in the box that transmits the ejection signal from the back seat to the front seat, allowing it to get damaged. That and one loose screw.

No, a connector was not fully screwed in, which is why the seat didn't eject.

Either way it sounds like it was good to discover this in a situation that didn't require ejection.

What's wild is that a connector not being fully screwed in by mistake prevented a very expensive jet full of a lot of fuel from lawn-darting (and potentially killing a lot of people. Crashing fighters seem to have a knack for ending up in dense residential housing areas.)

The solo switch according to the youtube fighter pilot video is so that a solo pilot doesn't have to wait for the rear seat to fire if they activate an ejection.

I'm curious about that explanation--in the seats I'm familiar with, initiation (including all the different potential sequencing modes) is done entirely through an explosive train to prevent this exact failure mode (loose Cannon plugs cause plenty of other problems though).

We're talking about different things. In "forward both, aft self" mode a front-seat-initiated ejection still ejects both seats in the normal sequence, while in "solo" mode it would only eject itself. For obvious reasons, you would never fly with a passenger in "solo" mode.

It's also practical; as the plane is moving forward, the aft seat needs a head start to reduce chances of mid air collision, or even burns.

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