What happens when a fighter pilot ejects? Inside the split-second escape after F-15E hit over Iran
A U.S. Air Force crew had only seconds to react after their F-15E Strike Eagle was hit by enemy fire over Iran Friday. Both airmen ejected.The escape from the aircraft...
By Fox News · Fox News
A U.S. Air Force crew had only seconds to react after their F-15E Strike Eagle was hit by enemy fire over Iran Friday. Both airmen ejected. The escape from the aircraft — triggered in an instant — set off a high-risk rescue mission deep inside hostile territory, as U.S. forces raced to recover the crew before Iranian forces could reach them. In those few seconds, the ejection seat transforms from a last-resort safety system into an explosive escape mechanism — launching the crew out of the aircraft and into open air before a parachute deploys. RESCUE EXPERT SAYS MOST DANGEROUS MOMENT COMES AFTER ‘JACKPOT’ CALL IN RECOVERY BEHIND ENEMY LINES That is the sequence the pilot and weapon systems officer aboard the F-15E over Iran would have experienced after their aircraft was struck Friday, forcing them to eject and triggering a high-risk rescue operation over the weekend. The incident — and the successful recovery of both airmen in recent days — offers a rare look at what happens in the split second a pilot ejects, and the extreme forces they endure to survive. "It’s a violent event," Pete "Gunz" Gersten, a former F-16 pilot who flew special operations missions, told Fox News Digital. The moment a pilot pulls the ejection handle, the sequence begins almost instantly. The canopy disappears in a fraction of a second. The seat rockets upward, forcing the body through intense acceleration. When a pilot pulls the ejection handle, they are subjected to forces ranging from 14G to 20G (14 times to 20 times the force of gravity), according to military experts. For a 200-pound airman, this means their body feels as if it suddenly weighs 4,000 pounds. "You’re no longer a decision-maker," Gersten said, describing what happens to pilots who eject. "You’re a participant, and you’re on the ride." Within moments, the aircraft falls away behind them, while the crew is suspended in open air, waiting for the parachute to deploy. That is the moment the two airmen over Iran would have face…