Military Flight Safety

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suryag
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by suryag »

rohitvats
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by rohitvats »

^^^Every time this thread comes up on active list, my heart misses a beat.

Thank God, there are not fatalities.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Pratyush »

What is the status of the aircraft. Is it a total loss or can be returned to service after repairs?
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by shiv »

So we've lost an Mi 26? I hope the injured are all going to be OK.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Jagan »

looks like a write off (Tail boom broken /bent - heavy bird - wouldnt have survived even a topple..)

Image

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 097397.cms
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by vivek_ahuja »

Oh man! Not a Mi-26! There were only four to begin with! :cry: :evil:

Thankfully, there were no deaths.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by shiv »

Maybe I shouldn't say it here. But I predict that Chinooks will come.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by prashantsharma »

SandeepS wrote:Jagan, I was going through the MIG-25 thread on BRF homepage and also the material on 'Warbirds of India' site and I noticed that neither sites mention a MiG-25R that crashed near Station Arty Officers' Mess, Jodhpur in summer of 1985 or 86. The crash site was approximately 2-3kms in a straight line (almost) from the southern end of Jodhpur runway.

Apparently from what I recollect of the CoI the crash was blamed on the ATC and the different procedures followed by MiG25R during landing. As MiG25R had an extremely long and complex descent profile, once they were cleared for landing they were given exclusive and priority landing slot and were not required to keep in touch with ATC. In this case, the ATC tried to squeeze in a flight of MiG-21s to land at the last minute before the MiG25R that he had already cleared. The last MiG-21 did not notice the MiG25R as it was in its massive blind-spot while banking to line-up but the MiG-25R's pilot did notice and tried to pull-up. Apparently, MiG-25R had this issue that once they were committed into their really long descent profile, then any sudden changes were not recommended. The MiG-25R pilot then noticed that he was heading straight towards unit lines of 4 Mech and chose to stick with his doomed aircraft till it was clear. He bailed out too late and lost his lower limbs and died on the way to MH.

For the sake of clarity I think I should mention that I cannot claim authenticity for the details of CoI as it was told to me by a senior AF officer soon after the crash. However, I witnessed the burning crash site.

I will again review the exhaustive list of crashes on Warbirds of India site to see if this crash has been registered under some different category but at the moment Accidents List for IAF page on that site seems broken as it is returning 0 records.
From an airforce pilot stationed in Jodhpur at the time....

"As the post says, the MiG 25 was on long finals when a formation of 32 Sqn MiG 21s led by the the CO came overhead. The ATC had told the CO that the MiG 25 was on finals and that they should wait for him to land. But the CO, who was also the officiating COO at the time, overruled the controller saying that his formation would be on the ground much before the MiG 25 reached short finals.

It is a matter of conjecture that the MiG 25 pilot tried to do a S turn on finals to accomodate the MiG 21s and lost control and crashed. It is well known that you don't mess with a MiG 25 once you are in the landing configuration.

Whether the pilot saw the 4 Mech lines and elected to stick with the aircraft till it was clear of the buildings is conjecture. There was no R/T call from him and I wonder how much he could see from the nose up attitude and bank. He was surely concentrating on recovering control of his aircraft."
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Surya »

prashant

thanks

was that CO ever punished?? Thanks for the info

Let me check too
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by nachiket »

Surya ji, Was that punishable offence? Prima facie it might seem so, but I am not convinced. He was commanding a Mig-21 squadron and might not be aware of the special circumstances of a Mig-25 landing. What could be an issue is the CO being allowed to overrule the ATC despite none of his aircraft being in an emergency. Shouldn't the ATC be given the authority in such cases? This is a procedural issue rather than human error.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Surya »

hi nachiket

no need for the ji

I do not know

am going to check
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by wig »

daily excelsior, a newspaper published from jammu, has this to report on the mi26 helicopter mishap of 14 dec 2010
When it attained the height of just 30 to 40 meters above the airstrip, the helicopter all of a sudden crashed and fell on the ground near the runway with a big bang causing grievous injuries to all the persons on board. The intensity of the bang could be gauged from the fact that broken parts of the badly damaged helicopter were seen scattered up to over 100 meters away from the spot of crash.
for the full report
http://www.dailyexcelsior.com/
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by schowdhuri »

The Mig-25 Jodhpur crash was one one the most unfortunate accidents I remember (dad was posted at Bareilly AFB then). Pilot was a young sikh Flt Lt, just married a few months back. That was also roughly the period when a Jaguar CO crashed (I was seeing the take off lights while having dinner). Went so deep into the ground that water came out, and recovery was impossible.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by rohitvats »

schowdhuri wrote:<SNIP>Pilot was a young sikh Flt Lt, just married a few months back. <SNIP>
I have a query - I was given to understand that generally only senior pilots - of the rank of Sqaudron Leader and above - were on the rolls to fly the Foxbat. Primarily because of the sensitive nature of operations.

In case you can share the information in public domain, please do. Thanx.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by schowdhuri »

Hi Rohit,
Maybe I was wrong about the 'young' part, certain about the Flt Lt part though - no idea if this was an exception.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Jagan »

Thanks for the additional inputs on the Foxbat crash. There were some details published about the accident (the same one I guess) in an indian aviation medicine (IAM) journal. I will post them later - after I go home and refer to the file.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Jagan »

This one probably either the 85 accident or another one in 1992 (Which I think was not fatal - but I dont know). The account was downloaded from one of the docs from IAM on medind.nic.in
The KM-1M is a fully automatic rocket boosted seat weighing 135 kg. It has three modes of operation with automatic mode selection based on the aircraft altitude and speed at the time of  ejection. It is capable of providing successful escape at altitudes of zero to 20 km above ground level and at speeds of 130 kmph to 1200 kmph. Or, stated simply, it is a ground level ejection seat with minimum aircraft speed requirement of 130 kmph. Hence theoretically, the seat can provide successful escape capability to  the pilot in practically every conceivable flight situation.

An experienced pilot was making an approach for landing in a Garud aircraft. At a distance of about 4-5 km from the landing dumbell, at a height of about 350 m AGL and a speed of about 400 kmph, the pilot appeared to have encountered some problem. Though the exact nature of the problem could not be determined, the pilot seemed to have lost control of the aircraft. He initiated the ejection mechanism at a height of about 300 m AGL. The aircraft attitude was almost level and it was descending rapidly with a speed of about 350 kmph. The estimated rate of descent of the aircraft was about 50 m/sec. The ejection sequence functioned normally upto the stage of seat separation at which point it hit the ground. The pilot parachute did not deploy because of insufficient height. The pilot landed on the ground fully separated from the seat, but with parachute undeployed. He sustained severe multiple internal and external injuries including fractures of all bones, rupture of heart and liver and telescoping of cervical spine into the skull. He was killed instantaneously on impact.

The pilot was in a hopeless position right from the beginning. At the time of occurrence of the emergency he was on approach path with reduced engine power and at low altitude and low speed. In addition he had the undercarriage and flaps down. However, he reacted quickly and ejected without loss of time. There was no way he could have gained any height whatsoever, since he had no speed to trade-in to begin with. Thus when he ejected, he was already well into the unsafe zone, but one thing is immediately noticeable, that he ejected at an altitude which was higher than that of Case II. But what did him in, was his rate of descent, which in his aircraft was inherently very high, aircraft configuration at the time of ejection making it worse.

Rohit,

schowdhuri's recollection about the Flt Lt was probably correct. I just checked the 'pilots list' and two of the first six pilots who underwent training were both Flt Lts. (RE Ketkar and B S Khalsa)

And finally regarding the landing approach
After the mission is over descent is commenced at 300 km from the recovery base :eek: . The aircraft
has to level out at 50,000 ft for one minute for cooling the airframe which gets heated up at such high
speeds. Thereafter a descent for a direct approach and landing is executed. Given the low
manoeuverability of the aircraft, a very long straight-in approach is carried out.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Aditya G »

Jagan wrote:looks like a write off (Tail boom broken /bent - heavy bird - wouldnt have survived even a topple..)
Infact there was one incident in Chandigarh AFS where a Mi-26 was blown over by strong winds. The aircraft sustained damage but was made flight worthy again.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Jagan »

Are you sure you are not confusing it with the collapsed strut incident? Thats the only major accident that I know happened to the Mi-26. blown over by wind appears impossible in indian conditions .. atleast. happy to be corrected.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by vivek_ahuja »

Aditya G wrote:Infact there was one incident in Chandigarh AFS where a Mi-26 was blown over by strong winds :shock: :shock: . The aircraft sustained damage but was made flight worthy again.
Have to concur with Jagan on this one. Its probably the strut incident.

It would take a lot to blow over an Mi-26.

The current incident, however, is probably a write-off without heavy structural repairs. Fuselage is probably in cracks given the impact described.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Surya »

I would hate to be the first guys on site for crashes. Will probably be traumatised for life

a reminder of why fighter pilots are a breed apart
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by prashantsharma »

Surya wrote:prashant

thanks

was that CO ever punished?? Thanks for the info

Let me check too
It was 15 years ago and details are hard to remember but dont think anyone was blamed for the accident (definitely not the CO).

Could be that they wanted to hush it up or that a number of other factors contributed along with the CO's decision - ATC officer (and his senior or SFSO?) didnt firmly stand his ground (appears so), ATC officer was not trained / briefed about issues in Mig25 landing profile (possible), ATC officer didnt tell the CO that it was a Mig25 that he was cutting in infront of (unlikely), Mig25 pilot chose not to abort/go-around and thought that he could still continue with the descent or chose a risky maneuver (dont know whether aborting was an option). But this is just my arm-chair theorising.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by rohitvats »

Jagan wrote:
<SNIP>
After the mission is over descent is commenced at 300 km from the recovery base :eek: . The aircraft
has to level out at 50,000 ft for one minute for cooling the airframe which gets heated up at such high
speeds. Thereafter a descent for a direct approach and landing is executed. Given the low
manoeuverability of the aircraft, a very long straight-in approach is carried out.
To Jagan and other aviation gurus,

The data point above points to some very careful handling required of MiG-25R. I also remember seeing an interview of Jasjit Singh where he described why the MiG-25 was based in Bareilly - the a/c needs to fly at a gradual angle to reach the required altitude and speed for ingressing into hostile territory. In case these were based anywhere in Western India, they'd be over the hostile territory before attaining the required altitude and speed:P.

Having said that - the USSR operated Mig-25 as a standard long range and high alt. interceptor. While in our case, I'm told that one had to be real good for being selected for Mig-25R, in case of USSR standard pilot flew the a/c. So, why so much care required for Mig-25R (like the data point shared by Jagan above)? I can understand that U-2 and SR-71, because of their unique design and characteristics (where focus was on strat. intelligence and other factors of a/c design may be compromised), would require very stringent SOP.....but 300kms recovery from base for Mig-25R? what could be the reason for such restricted flight envelope? It was a fighter a/c after all? And I've seen MiG-25R do mock dog fight with MiG-21 over the Bareilly skies a number of times.... :mrgreen: . I'm a bit confused here.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by schowdhuri »

Rggd the Mig-25 accident, the version I heard was ATC asked Mig-21 & Mig-25 to land from opposite ends at the same time (no doubt a simplified version), but it is clear that fault was considered to be that of ATC.

Rohit,
Are you sure about Mig-25 & Mig-21 dogfight. It sounds absolutely unbelievable to me. Even the Mig-21's there (35-sqn) were specialist, and not ordinary fighters.

Trivia: The 102 Sqn folks were really special. The CO used to drive a Mercedees (a new one, apparently he could get it without duty). If you can imagine a AF officer in 80's driving a Mercedees you will know what I mean.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by rohitvats »

schowdhuri wrote: <SNIP>

Rohit,

Are you sure about Mig-25 & Mig-21 dogfight. It sounds absolutely unbelievable to me. Even the Mig-21's there (35-sqn) were specialist, and not ordinary fighters.

<SNIP>
That is what the sparring in the sky seemed to me with little Mig-21 literally running circles around the Garud...those were the when SU-30MKI had recently come into IAF and I had initially confused the Garud with rambha.....these couple of instances were the only times I saw these birds in the sky. It was not your normal formation flying, that I'm sure of.

Also, not only the Mig-25R but even the Mig-21s were not seen in the sky or heard that frequently...yes, the IA cantonment is pretty far from IAF base but then, the intensity of flying, imo, was no where close to what I could see and hear in Pathankot. Yes, Pathankot AFB being a forward base and all is there, but still.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by shiv »

rohitvats wrote:
The data point above points to some very careful handling required of MiG-25R. I also remember seeing an interview of Jasjit Singh where he described why the MiG-25 was based in Bareilly - the a/c needs to fly at a gradual angle to reach the required altitude and speed for ingressing into hostile territory. In case these were based anywhere in Western India, they'd be over the hostile territory before attaining the required altitude and speed:P.

Having said that - the USSR operated Mig-25 as a standard long range and high alt. interceptor. While in our case, I'm told that one had to be real good for being selected for Mig-25R, in case of USSR standard pilot flew the a/c. So, why so much care required for Mig-25R (like the data point shared by Jagan above)? I can understand that U-2 and SR-71, because of their unique design and characteristics (where focus was on strat. intelligence and other factors of a/c design may be compromised), would require very stringent SOP.....but 300kms recovery from base for Mig-25R? what could be the reason for such restricted flight envelope? It was a fighter a/c after all? And I've seen MiG-25R do mock dog fight with MiG-21 over the Bareilly skies a number of times.... :mrgreen: . I'm a bit confused here.
Rohit the MiG 25 had a very high wing loading - ie the wing surface area was small compared to the weight of the aircraft. Such an aircraft is ideal for flying high and fast. The U-2 would fly high and slow due to high wing surface area.

An aircraft that has a smaller wing surface area per unit weight finds it more difficult to stay in the air at lower speeds. So I am certain that landing speeds must have been high and the lower the speed the worse the maneuverability. There was a nice story of a MiG 25 over Kargil who was requested to fly slow for some reason and the pilot wrote that he could barely stay in the air at those speeds.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by rohitvats »

shiv wrote:
<SNIP>

Rohit the MiG 25 had a very high wing loading - ie the wing surface area was small compared to the weight of the aircraft. Such an aircraft is ideal for flying high and fast. The U-2 would fly high and slow due to high wing surface area.

An aircraft that has a smaller wing surface area per unit weight finds it more difficult to stay in the air at lower speeds. So I am certain that landing speeds must have been high and the lower the speed the worse the maneuverability. There was a nice story of a MiG 25 over Kargil who was requested to fly slow for some reason and the pilot wrote that he could barely stay in the air at those speeds.
Sirji, I'm aware of the Mig-25R wingloading issue.....infact, even for U-2 with its massive wings (relative to size and weight), iirc, there was a statement that the altitutdes at which it used to fly, the difference between cruise speed and stall speeds was but a few knots.

What I'm trying to understand is the requirement for 300kms recovery funnel....can it be that it is 30kms and not 300kms? If the USSR could operate the type with average joe pilots and if the design of the a/c required such stringent SOP, then either USSR would have lost many of these or there is more to the story in our case. It could as simple a case of very few of these in IAF and they being strategic assets, IAF wanted to be double sure with the a/c. JMT.

PS: Can you provide link to the Mig-25R and Kargil story? Thanx.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by shiv »

Rohit the post says "Descent is begun from 300 km away". Interestingly I recall reading a book that says that a typical airliner descends towards landing at 1000 feet per minute. In fact on long flights where the airliner is cruising at 30,000 feet the descent starts about 30 minutes before touchdown. That would be from 250 km away for an airliner flying at over 500 kmph. Descent from 300 km away does not seem so far fetched for a MiG 25 that has been cruising at 50,000 feet or higher. But I doubt if it can be a straight line for 300 km.

Will try and find that Kargil story. I am now beginning to wonder if it was something that was related to me in person by someone.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by rohitvats »

shiv wrote:Rohit the post says "Descent is begun from 300 km away". Interestingly I recall reading a book that says that a typical airliner descends towards landing at 1000 feet per minute. In fact on long flights where the airliner is cruising at 30,000 feet the descent starts about 30 minutes before touchdown. That would be from 250 km away for an airliner flying at over 500 kmph. Descent from 300 km away does not seem so far fetched for a MiG 25 that has been cruising at 50,000 feet or higher. But I doubt if it can be a straight line for 300 km.

<SNIP>.
OK. I get the drift now. Basically, no funny and fighter jock stuff with MiG-25R in our service...like short finals and quick turning of nose to gain heading to the base.......the thing flies like (or was made to fly like) a brick with very strict and restrictive SOP for the entire schedule of the flight. I'm wearing to the conclusion that it was done because these birds were strategic assets and we did not want to take any chances.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Jagan »

Shiv,

Infact the MiG-25's regular mission altitude (with the IAF) is given as 80,000 feet. (I had left off that bit when posting the above excerpt). My understanding of the para is that the descent starts from that altitude at 300km.. then a brief levelling off at 50,000 to cool the airframe and then descend again for a direct approach. So thats probably accounts for an even higher rate of descent. (50m/sec is stated in the IAM excerpt on the accident). The deceased pilot ejected at 1000feet altitude (300m AGL). Seems like Ejection is not an option once committed to landing.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by shiv »

Jagman the report says a problem occurred at 350 meters altitude, 4-5 km from "landing dumbell" when he was at 400 kmph.

At 400 kmph the plane would have required 40 seconds or so to get to the runway. Losing 350 meters in 40 seconds requires a descent rate of about 9 m/s which compares well with the Googled descent rate of 3 m/s for airliners. Obviously 50 m/sec is way too fast and must have been due to the malfunction. I recall Suresh telling me time and again that for a safe ejection both altitude and descent rate are important.

Naturally - a zero descent rate (level flight) would result in the ejection seat actually gaining altitude. But descending at 50 meters per sec the plane is heading downwards at 180 kmph. A brief calculation tells me that for an ejection seat to gain altitude when the plane is heading down at that rate - it would need to accelerate up at over 20 G for a sustained period. A man's head weighing 6 kg would weigh 120 kg - a 120 kg weight on one's neck. Enough to break anyone's spine - I don't think any seat is designed to do that - so the failed ejection was probably unavoidable under the circumstances.

The interesting thing is if you look for the video of the Su-30 crash at that airshow - the plane's tail scrapes the ground and then goes up but the pilots wait and do not eject until the plane reaches as high as it can go and the eject at that point in time. Both survived. Although the altitude was low - the upward movement probably helped save them.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Jagan »

yeah 50m/sec - must be falling like a rock or that doc got it wrong.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Pratik_S »

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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Jagan »

Excellent Pratik. Thanks for compiling that list.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Raja Bose »

Pratik, #17 and #18 are missing aircraft type information though in#18 the comments state that it was a Mi 26.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Rahul M »

#17 tawang crash was a Mi-17.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Rupak »

Great work Pratik.

What is interesting over both 2010 and 2009 is the significant reduction in fighter aircraft attrition rates over the previous decade.
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Raja Bose »

Rahul M wrote:#17 tawang crash was a Mi-17.
That accounted for a big chunk of personnel lost!
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by Pratik_S »

Thanks for the compliments.
I have edited the list now. #17 &18 have aircraft name on it !
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Re: Military Flight Safety

Post by shiv »

Good work Pratik.

Met some retired Vayusena types yesterday and heard some good tales about fight accidents/safety. One of them blew me away - I won't tell all the details because I am told it might (hopefully) get published.

The tale is about a MiG 21 that kept circling an airbase and losing height with no response on the radio. A plane sent to intercept found the pilot unconscious and slumped forward. By Allah's grace the guy woke up and landed the plane before he hit the ground. He had apparently anticipated a medical emergency and had put the plane in autopilot - but woke up in time :shock: :D I will leave out the gory details of exactly what had happened.
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