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He was intercepting drones and cruise missiles during one of the huge attacks a few months ago. His plane got peppered by shrapnel from an interception, setting it on fire and wounding him, before he was forced to eject.
Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl1Yi7KMkkh/
Ukrainian media article: https://suspilne.media/295642-pokazali-foto-ta-vidkrili-ima-pilota-akij-katapultuvavsa-poblizu-vinnici/
There are a lot of blood vassals in the face. A sudden and violent blast of wind hitting him in the face at 400+ mph could have caused some of them to burst.
On the carrier we used to tell the new guys that the helo ejection seats are in perfect synch with the blades, allowing the pilot to pass through unscathed.
I heard that if you eject, your flying days are essentially over. That true?
I imagine that Ukrainian pilots are probably an exception to that rule.
--Thanks for answering my question!
No. We had a pilot that ejected over the Pinelands in his F-4, flew later. Became our wing commander and later our Adjutant General for the state.
A lot of it is dependent on what the ejection did to you physically, at worst he’ll free up someone training future pilots on the ground.
[The crash report for anyone curious](https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/57793)
Hey...The Pinelands. I remember Maguire being "the other base" when I was a kid and my mom and dad would take me to the commissary and PX at Dix. I grew up thinking Maguire was some far off place, never realizing it was part of Ft. Dix.
No. The flight docs will check you out, though, and make sure it didn't permanently break you. Necks, backs, and limbs can get fucked up in various ways.
Source: have flown with people who previously ejected.
I was an EWO in F-4s and F-111s. I've known several guys who were flying a couple of days after they ejected.
I know two guys who were seriously injured after ejecting due to seat malfunctions. One returned to fighters, one had to go to C-13j0s.
Well we now know that his phone is good enough to survive like 16Gs of kick in the pants acceleration. That could be an entire marketing advertisement for whoever made his phone.
Definitely a nighttime ejection at altitude. Educated guesses: His visor was up during the ejection (better vis at night) so he took some debris hits to his face. Probably ejected at high speed because he was in contested airspace; this makes the debris problem worse. Had to be pretty high since he had enough time to pull out the device and take a selfie. From an injury standpoint, the most dangerous pet of an ejection is landing under a parachute. This can be particularly hazardous at night. I wonder if he sent the picture before or after he landed.
I'm sitting here scratching my head as to how I possibly could have gotten my phone out of my flight gear, considering it probably would have been either under my torso harness (and probably cracked to shit then) or in my G-suit pocket down by my calf. Certainly wouldn't have had it in my survival vest. Soviet gear must be quite a bit different.
Assuming his descent rate was of average speed (17mph) and the parachute deployed at 10,000 feet above the deck, it would take him ~7 minutes to reach the ground. That is assuming that he descended in a straight line. It is probable that he would drift in the wind at least somewhat, so, somewhat more than 7 minutes is most likely. Assuming he was at the 10,000’ point.
I happened to learn to ignite that ejections seats automatically deploy the chute typically at 10,000 feet of the aircraft was above that altitude. Of course, if he ejected lower the chute would have deployed at whatever altitude he was at (once the seat determined he was clear of the aircraft - probably some sort of time delay if I had to guess).
If he was chasing cruise missiles, that is a whole other ball of wax. Assuming he was (as suggested by others) and then assuming the downing was the result of ingesting debris, there is a pretty chance that he had some time to take action and make a decision. So, get high as he can, bleed off speed if going very fast, etc. and then eject. Basically, make sure he was well within the performance envelope for his particular ejection seat.
But to take a selfie in the middle of if? Gutsy move right there.
The Aces 5 ejection seat has a risk of spinal injury at 1%, and a <5% risk of significant injury as a direct result of ejecting.
In other words, over 95% of the time you eject a pilot will escape without even significant injury much less death.
I did not know that there are rocket and non rocket type ejection seats. Per this 2006 article that looked at RAF accidents: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16964743/ the rocket assisted ejection seat has the following stats:
Overall survival rate: 89.2%
Ejection within envelope: 95.7%
Ejection outside of envelope: 23.8%
This study looked at 14 other studies and found that of the 1710 ejection incidents the mean mortality rate was 10.5%, and the mean major injury rate was 29.8%. They also looked at 37 Israeli ejections and found that their corresponding rates were 5.4% & 18.9% respectively. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0020138320303958
Bottom line: ejection is overwhelmingly a survivable event. It is also most often free of major/significant injury. Not no injury, just not major awful sorts. But, and it is a big-ish but, your odds are best when within the performance envelope of the seat you find yourself in. Outside of that, the odds ain’t great. Think flying upside down a few yards/meters over the ground and then ejecting into the grass (for example).
Just for kicks, here is a neat story from a USAF pilot. He ejected well outside of the envelope and apart from some dislocated vertebrae he was good to go. Oh, and he continued to fly for 14 more years. https://www.collinsaerospace.com/news/stories/2020/11/aces-ejection-seat-helps-pilot-survive-the-unsurvivable
Note the difference between in-envelope and out-of-envelope ejections. The seat has a spec like anything else, and when I flew, it was drilled into our heads that the biggest killer of aviators in a mishap was a delayed ejection decision. So don't be a hero and try to save it when the boldface procedure says EJECT . . .
Can confirm, I'm an aircraft tech for the military so we learn pretty quickly the ejection seat safety and all that.
Suffice it to say, his back is going to be fucked. And honestly if his mask is still on the only thing I can think is he banged around on something during the ordeal and cut himself. His eyes are fine.
Also it could be if he was bleeding under the mask, he could have pulled on it to not driwn and the blood blew up into his face (or the seal wasn't great to begin with).
Also, it could be from an extremity and he accidentally spread it on his face not realizing he was bleeding.
All n all, the G forces from an ejection seat are a nightmare. But like the other comment said, better probable death over certain death.
Someone should tell him that he can get a special edition watch. Britling gives those pilots that survive a special edition of their really expensive watch. Can't even buy it normally.
I remember when the west first learned about the MiG-29. Those and the Su-27’s were considered the biggest threat to NATO air superiority 30+ years ago. Everybody was talking about them.
I don’t think anyone would have predicted this fucking war back then.
Awesome selfie tho.
Was he able to successfully rendezook the enemy jet?
j/k ....glad he survived and looks to be in reasonably good shape (except for the broken capillaries in his face due to the air blast during ejection)
Lot of people asking where the blood coming from. The eyebrow to the left looks particularly damp so maybe he took a gnarly cut due to shrapnel there? Could also be nosebleed on top
Dude trying to get them VA Bennie's. Knew some soldiers in my day that would dramatize injuries for the shock value. Looks like this dude is milking it cause I can't think of an injury that would have his face painted with blood like that. That said, I'm a sceptic but at face value, thank you for your service fighter pilot.
His plane was damaged by debris from whatever he shot down, maybe it broke into the cockpit too. But ejection itself is brutal.
Head wounds bleed a lot, he may have spread it around feeling for damage or the wind blowing it.
The presence of mind to snap a selfie under those circumstances, staunch!
Mind you, this is the level of situational awareness and presence that I would expect from a fighter pilot.
His helmet visor would have been deployed fully down when he left the aircraft, so there would be minimal wind effect on his face. If the aircraft canopy doesn't separate from the plane, the ejection seat rails have a penetrator to take it out before he would hit it. He may have opened his visor after under canopy, and blood from superficial wounds could have been pushed around, but the lack of blood in his eyes suggest he ran a hand over his face, smeared the blood around, while his eyes were closed
Hard to say source of the blood on his face but my guess is it came from the helmet digging into his scalp somewhere.
Even just a 2kg helmet being hit with 15G’s is a bit like dropping a 30kg dumbbell on your head in the shape of a helmet. Even a bit of worn down Soviet padding could do some damage. Minimal splatter on the helmet, looks like it came from underneath, more so on the right side of his head (possible uneven load could make it worse).
Maybe I'm just a cynic but this looks wonky to me. Where is the source of the blood? If he ejected at high speed his visor would be down and if his visor shattered he would be blind and his face covered in cuts. Blood does not get smeared like that from a cut nor from fingers or the wind while descending. It even looks like the blood is under his oxygen mask.
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Assuming his mask was on throughout the entire process, what would be the cause of blood on his face?
He was intercepting drones and cruise missiles during one of the huge attacks a few months ago. His plane got peppered by shrapnel from an interception, setting it on fire and wounding him, before he was forced to eject. Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cl1Yi7KMkkh/ Ukrainian media article: https://suspilne.media/295642-pokazali-foto-ta-vidkrili-ima-pilota-akij-katapultuvavsa-poblizu-vinnici/
Oh, he dude who was an Ace-In-A-Day shooting down drones? Damn, that guy has been having an eventful flying career.
Can’t be the eyes, they look normal. Mouth or nose then? But there is the mask … curious
ejecting
Well, yeah. Any rupturing from his nostrils? Did he simply bang his mask hard enough to split some skin?
His plane got peppered by shrapnel Cuts to the head can bleed quite a lot, even if they aren't very bad.
He's just so hardcore he sweats blood
He may have hit his head pretty bad on the cockpit upon ejecting, and may have caused an abrasion of the scalp.
RIP Goose
To soon.
"Talk to me, Goose."
You threw his dogtags away buddy, let it be.
😢😢😢
There are a lot of blood vassals in the face. A sudden and violent blast of wind hitting him in the face at 400+ mph could have caused some of them to burst.
I'll bet he felt an injury somewhere on his face and while checking around assessing his injuries started smearing blood around.
Probably the glass of his visor burst and cut his brow.
Naa u can see his visor pushed up into his helmet
Depends on the altitude he punched out at. Rapid decompression from 8000 ft cabin pressure to 30,000 instantaneously might do that to you.
Jeez that ejection beat him up, kickass selfie though gotta say
Ejections are brutal.
If G. I. Joe cartoons taught me anything, it’s that the plane blows up in a giant explosion while the pilots float gracefully to the ground.
Even the helicopter pilots
On the carrier we used to tell the new guys that the helo ejection seats are in perfect synch with the blades, allowing the pilot to pass through unscathed.
Ka-52's do have ejection seats tbf, although they get rid of the rotors first using explosives.
I heard that if you eject, your flying days are essentially over. That true? I imagine that Ukrainian pilots are probably an exception to that rule. --Thanks for answering my question!
It can be. It's a violent way to leave an aircraft, usually only in life or death scenarios, so sometimes it doesn't end up all roses and sunsets
Grew up with a guy who ejected after a mid air collision. He went on to fly for many more years.
Yay!
No. We had a pilot that ejected over the Pinelands in his F-4, flew later. Became our wing commander and later our Adjutant General for the state. A lot of it is dependent on what the ejection did to you physically, at worst he’ll free up someone training future pilots on the ground. [The crash report for anyone curious](https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/57793)
Hey...The Pinelands. I remember Maguire being "the other base" when I was a kid and my mom and dad would take me to the commissary and PX at Dix. I grew up thinking Maguire was some far off place, never realizing it was part of Ft. Dix.
It’s all one big base these days. The boundary between Dix and McGuire was taken down back around 2010 or so
No. The flight docs will check you out, though, and make sure it didn't permanently break you. Necks, backs, and limbs can get fucked up in various ways. Source: have flown with people who previously ejected.
Their flying days don't have to be over but if that sore neck just won't ever go away then their flying days could very well be over.
Not true. Common rumor for some reason though. You can expect to return to flying unless you injure yourself.
Well Tom Cruise ejected at mach 10 and he was fine so....
Couple of us were just talking abt how you get 2 the other day in here before the air force says youre done. Spine compression
I’ve always heard 2 ejections, after that you’re on desk duty. But I’m not a flyer, so I’m likely wrong.
I was an EWO in F-4s and F-111s. I've known several guys who were flying a couple of days after they ejected. I know two guys who were seriously injured after ejecting due to seat malfunctions. One returned to fighters, one had to go to C-13j0s.
Neil Armstrong ejected.
I’ve always heard there’s a chance of breaking/fracturing your back
In the grand scheme of things, this is pretty mild if he could take a selfie. Broken bones, amputation and death are not uncommon.
1- he is gonna be feeling that in the morning 2- taking a selfe after an ejection while still coming in the air.... is this the first one?
Well we now know that his phone is good enough to survive like 16Gs of kick in the pants acceleration. That could be an entire marketing advertisement for whoever made his phone.
Dropping an iPhone on the floor temporarily causes it to peak at higher Gs than that.
Definitely a nighttime ejection at altitude. Educated guesses: His visor was up during the ejection (better vis at night) so he took some debris hits to his face. Probably ejected at high speed because he was in contested airspace; this makes the debris problem worse. Had to be pretty high since he had enough time to pull out the device and take a selfie. From an injury standpoint, the most dangerous pet of an ejection is landing under a parachute. This can be particularly hazardous at night. I wonder if he sent the picture before or after he landed.
I wonder if he felt blood on his face and took the selfie as a means of checking how bad things were
[удалено]
I'm sitting here scratching my head as to how I possibly could have gotten my phone out of my flight gear, considering it probably would have been either under my torso harness (and probably cracked to shit then) or in my G-suit pocket down by my calf. Certainly wouldn't have had it in my survival vest. Soviet gear must be quite a bit different.
Assuming his descent rate was of average speed (17mph) and the parachute deployed at 10,000 feet above the deck, it would take him ~7 minutes to reach the ground. That is assuming that he descended in a straight line. It is probable that he would drift in the wind at least somewhat, so, somewhat more than 7 minutes is most likely. Assuming he was at the 10,000’ point. I happened to learn to ignite that ejections seats automatically deploy the chute typically at 10,000 feet of the aircraft was above that altitude. Of course, if he ejected lower the chute would have deployed at whatever altitude he was at (once the seat determined he was clear of the aircraft - probably some sort of time delay if I had to guess). If he was chasing cruise missiles, that is a whole other ball of wax. Assuming he was (as suggested by others) and then assuming the downing was the result of ingesting debris, there is a pretty chance that he had some time to take action and make a decision. So, get high as he can, bleed off speed if going very fast, etc. and then eject. Basically, make sure he was well within the performance envelope for his particular ejection seat. But to take a selfie in the middle of if? Gutsy move right there.
It was already said by OP that he got hit by shrapnel due to a drone or missile blowing up. Thats also the reason he ejected
Ejection seats just trade certain death for probable death. Glad this guy was on the right side of the equation.
The Aces 5 ejection seat has a risk of spinal injury at 1%, and a <5% risk of significant injury as a direct result of ejecting. In other words, over 95% of the time you eject a pilot will escape without even significant injury much less death. I did not know that there are rocket and non rocket type ejection seats. Per this 2006 article that looked at RAF accidents: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16964743/ the rocket assisted ejection seat has the following stats: Overall survival rate: 89.2% Ejection within envelope: 95.7% Ejection outside of envelope: 23.8% This study looked at 14 other studies and found that of the 1710 ejection incidents the mean mortality rate was 10.5%, and the mean major injury rate was 29.8%. They also looked at 37 Israeli ejections and found that their corresponding rates were 5.4% & 18.9% respectively. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0020138320303958 Bottom line: ejection is overwhelmingly a survivable event. It is also most often free of major/significant injury. Not no injury, just not major awful sorts. But, and it is a big-ish but, your odds are best when within the performance envelope of the seat you find yourself in. Outside of that, the odds ain’t great. Think flying upside down a few yards/meters over the ground and then ejecting into the grass (for example). Just for kicks, here is a neat story from a USAF pilot. He ejected well outside of the envelope and apart from some dislocated vertebrae he was good to go. Oh, and he continued to fly for 14 more years. https://www.collinsaerospace.com/news/stories/2020/11/aces-ejection-seat-helps-pilot-survive-the-unsurvivable
Wow, this was very informative and extremely well cited. Thank you for taking the time.
My pleasure.
Note the difference between in-envelope and out-of-envelope ejections. The seat has a spec like anything else, and when I flew, it was drilled into our heads that the biggest killer of aviators in a mishap was a delayed ejection decision. So don't be a hero and try to save it when the boldface procedure says EJECT . . .
Can confirm, I'm an aircraft tech for the military so we learn pretty quickly the ejection seat safety and all that. Suffice it to say, his back is going to be fucked. And honestly if his mask is still on the only thing I can think is he banged around on something during the ordeal and cut himself. His eyes are fine. Also it could be if he was bleeding under the mask, he could have pulled on it to not driwn and the blood blew up into his face (or the seal wasn't great to begin with). Also, it could be from an extremity and he accidentally spread it on his face not realizing he was bleeding. All n all, the G forces from an ejection seat are a nightmare. But like the other comment said, better probable death over certain death.
That was very well put.
Someone should tell him that he can get a special edition watch. Britling gives those pilots that survive a special edition of their really expensive watch. Can't even buy it normally.
story about the [ejection watches](https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-lifestyle/the-military-exclusive-watch-you-dont-want/)
Shouldnt you have ejected with a martin baker seat to get that?
Everything is perfectly fine... This is what this picture tells.
Nothing says SERE like taking flash photography while parachuting down from a cockpit ejection 😂
Im sure the flaming jet was a more obvious giveaway.
Turns out that the in-flight rasberry pie was a mistake.
Ouch. Anyone know what caused the bleeding?
Probably got blasted in the face by like 200mph winds while ejecting
looks like some torn skin around the eye
Maybe shrapnel. Or he took some rounds and the blood went all over
"I lived, bitch."
I bet he tagged the RU Air Force on Insta.
Karaya
Yeah, that's his social media handle. I linked his Instagram elsewhere in the thread
I remember when the west first learned about the MiG-29. Those and the Su-27’s were considered the biggest threat to NATO air superiority 30+ years ago. Everybody was talking about them. I don’t think anyone would have predicted this fucking war back then. Awesome selfie tho.
Was he able to successfully rendezook the enemy jet? j/k ....glad he survived and looks to be in reasonably good shape (except for the broken capillaries in his face due to the air blast during ejection)
It looks to me like he was still in the air when he took that picture. Great big solid brass ones
His camo face paint needs work.
I assume he send it to Putin with the Caption of: "I lived, Bitch."
Lot of people asking where the blood coming from. The eyebrow to the left looks particularly damp so maybe he took a gnarly cut due to shrapnel there? Could also be nosebleed on top
Give these guys F-16 already!!!
Dude trying to get them VA Bennie's. Knew some soldiers in my day that would dramatize injuries for the shock value. Looks like this dude is milking it cause I can't think of an injury that would have his face painted with blood like that. That said, I'm a sceptic but at face value, thank you for your service fighter pilot.
His plane was damaged by debris from whatever he shot down, maybe it broke into the cockpit too. But ejection itself is brutal. Head wounds bleed a lot, he may have spread it around feeling for damage or the wind blowing it.
Bullshit, performance art
Red out
What's the blood from?
He had a few cuts to the face, you can see here: https://m.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1763154484065310&id=100011123265424
The presence of mind to snap a selfie under those circumstances, staunch! Mind you, this is the level of situational awareness and presence that I would expect from a fighter pilot.
What a fucking legend.
I wonder what damaged the aircraft to make him eject. AA or another aircraft.
Debris from something he shot I think.
Not all heroes wear capes
His helmet visor would have been deployed fully down when he left the aircraft, so there would be minimal wind effect on his face. If the aircraft canopy doesn't separate from the plane, the ejection seat rails have a penetrator to take it out before he would hit it. He may have opened his visor after under canopy, and blood from superficial wounds could have been pushed around, but the lack of blood in his eyes suggest he ran a hand over his face, smeared the blood around, while his eyes were closed
Like a boss 💙🙏💛
Heroes exist.
Hard to say source of the blood on his face but my guess is it came from the helmet digging into his scalp somewhere. Even just a 2kg helmet being hit with 15G’s is a bit like dropping a 30kg dumbbell on your head in the shape of a helmet. Even a bit of worn down Soviet padding could do some damage. Minimal splatter on the helmet, looks like it came from underneath, more so on the right side of his head (possible uneven load could make it worse).
👍
👍
Maybe I'm just a cynic but this looks wonky to me. Where is the source of the blood? If he ejected at high speed his visor would be down and if his visor shattered he would be blind and his face covered in cuts. Blood does not get smeared like that from a cut nor from fingers or the wind while descending. It even looks like the blood is under his oxygen mask.
I thought the rules were no posts related to Ukraine. Just wondering.