Military Flight Safety

[ashthor]

I am not sure...but check the helmet position.

[Jay]

Almost every serious airforce in the world has full time dedicated solo jet display teams

Netherlands, Belgium, Turkey, Poland have F16 solo display teams
UK, Spain, Germany and Austria have Typhoon solo jet display teams
USAF/USN have F16, F22, F18
IAF has no such formal full time arrangement

That's exactly the point. If IAF wants to do these demo's routinely, won't they be better served with a dedicated cadre to avoid things like this

Trying to bring HAL into this unless it is explicitly proven something on their end led to this outcome is atrocious and will just ensure further lapses on the IAF’s part in the future

Useless or not, it will have a damper , at least for a time when HAL goes in front of potential customers to market the plane. HOW ARE WE NOT GETTING THIS? We cannot afford to compartmentalize our efforts, goals, and practices and hope to win.

[S_Madhukar]

I just feel HAL test pilots should do this showbazi. Right now we need every experienced pilot ready for combat.

I don’t even agree on Tejas marketing when we wait every month for a GE engine to arrive. Walk then run. Once we have our own complete jet then start marketing or at least don’t push the envelope .We try to do Western style corporate tactics without the right structures in place.

[AdityaM]

Shouldn't the FBW have prevented this manoeuvre at low altitudes?

This wasn’t a stall, FBW can prevent exceeding the flight envelope but not CFIT

Arguably it looks like the auto recovery feature of the FCS attempted to regain control at the end hence why there was no ejection (if the pilot was not fully conscious )

The pilot appears to have attempted ejection.
In the video there is a glimpse of chute popping above the flames, but it is soon consumed by them.

Look behind the pole at 45-46 seconds.


https://x.com/sidhshuk/status/1992123979172327665?s=46

[sajaym]

This wasn’t a stall, FBW can prevent exceeding the flight envelope but not CFIT

Arguably it looks like the auto recovery feature of the FCS attempted to regain control at the end hence why there was no ejection (if the pilot was not fully conscious )

The pilot appears to have attempted ejection.
In the video there is a glimpse of chute popping above the flames, but it is soon consumed by them.

Look behind the pole at 45-46 seconds.


https://x.com/sidhshuk/status/1992123979172327665?s=46

Could be... OR could also be that the sheer force of the impact caused the ejection seat mechanism to trigger off partially. I've heard of such an incident in the 1980s when a Sikh pilot's Mig-21 hit the ground during low level manoeuvring and his ejection seat got triggered by the impact and saved him.

But look at the photos!!! The guy is literally scraping the desert floor....and still he thought he could get away with it??? My suggestion to the HAL engineers would be...this is NOT the last this is going to happen....PLEASE update the FBW to automatically trigger the ejection seat in such scenarios.

Because when the jet is that low THERE IS NO WAY that it recovers back. All the previous crashes in similar scenarios prove it....the F-16 Major.Stricklin crash, the 1989 IAF mirage 2000 crash, another French Mirage 2000 crash, the Russian SU-30 crash, the Pakistani F-16 crash, the Polish F-16 crash and now this crash. And of all the pilots only Major Stricklin was smart enough to get out of his jet BEFORE it impacted the ground.

[Cyrano]

Om Shanti to the pilot.
The last manoeuvre was a very tricky one, so close to the ground. Might have caused a few fleeting moments of black out for the pilot and bleeding of kinetic energy to the plane without sufficient height to regain both. The manoeuvre looks like a cork screw turning in two axes, vertical pitch and horizontal yaw axes. Beautiful but risqué.

I think the entire routine is mapped out and checked and rechecked by IAF and by the show organisers before greenlighting. They usually impose a floor height ceiling for the safety of all concerned, except of course for take off, landing and a straight low pass along the runway. This was the second or third day of this routine being performed, not sure if by the same pilot or if there were several pilots taking turns. In any case a tragic mistake happened, the only thing left now is to take the lessons and move on.
May the family find the courage to move on as well.

[gakakkad]

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2025 ... ht%20hours

Seems like massa lost 80 pilots between 2020-2024 in non combat situation including airshows . Some of those were helos which are dangerous. But f/a 18 seems to have the worst safety record .

[KSingh]

I just feel HAL test pilots should do this showbazi. Right now we need every experienced pilot ready for combat.

I don’t even agree on Tejas marketing when we wait every month for a GE engine to arrive. Walk then run. Once we have our own complete jet then start marketing or at least don’t push the envelope .We try to do Western style corporate tactics without the right structures in place.

This was an IAF jet, why would HAL test pilots be involved?

If the IAF were going to do this stuff they should do it properly like every other serious airforce and have a dedicated solo display team not this ad hoc arrangement

The more one looks at it the more grave the system that allowed this routine to take place seems

The more one looks at it the more one has to ask what oversight was there and who sanctioned a frontline (not full demo) pilot to perform such risky manoeuvres at a public airshow?

Comments below are from a professional pilots forum featuring former fast jet pilots

(Links to comments on the tweet)
https://x.com/ksingh_1469/status/199224 ... 88662?s=46


This isn’t an LCA problem this is an IAF problem and the elephant in the room is they have been coming up short operationally for a while, almost all their recent headline actions have had a degree of operational failure.

It’s high time they release the reports from COI publicly like professional airforces of other countries do:
https://youtu.be/VqGtD-rK3m0?si=vvwAxUD5I5W9vaP8
https://youtu.be/U2PyTwI1vIQ?si=fUBzkO3t-T86ymBt
https://youtu.be/sof1k5DsIrs?si=FnqcYVC9IJbSWnM7
https://youtu.be/owWU3VaMxY0?si=EIdG15LgXooDkd0S
https://youtu.be/hjewU9uN9Iw?si=47SwdREQzr5QVMEL

Many will now try to use innuendos or outright accusations blaming the LCA for this or it will be swept under the rug.

We still don’t really know how the 1st LCA was lost or even the CDs CFIT episode nor do we know what recommendations were made to avoid this happening in the future

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, aviation is unforgiving, cannot hide behind pride and false claims of a need for secrecy. A lesson not learned is a lesson that will be repeated

[AdityaM]

Frame by frame comparison of the routine

https://x.com/osintupdates/status/19922 ... 27887?s=46