Advances in Military Technology Vol. 14, No. 1 (2019), pp. 5-20 AiMT ISSN 1802-2308, eISSN 2533-4123 DOI 10.3849/aimt.01253 Ejection Causes in Military Jet Aircraft in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic O. Zavila 1* and R. Chmelík 2 1 Dept. of Fire Protection, VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Republic 2 Military Unit 7214, 211 th Squadron, Čáslav, Czech Republic The manuscript was received on 25 May 2018 and was accepted after revision for publication on 4 December 2018. Abstract: The article deals with the causes of ejections of crew members in military jet fighter, fighter ‐trainer and trainer aircraft in the service of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic from 1948 until the end of 2016. It presents a list of ejection causes by aircraft types on a timeline as well as historical and technical contexts, facts and development trends of these causes. Importantly, the role of the human factor in the causes of aircraft emergency events associated with ejections is analyzed. The study is accompanied by a unique overview of reference and still accessible information sources on the subject. Keywords: Army of the Czech Republic, ejection, aviation accident, human factor, jet aircraft, cause, statistics 1. Introduction Ejection is a procedure of an emergency exit of the aircraft by the crew using the ejection seat in an emergency situation that cannot be dealt with in other manner and in which the life of the crew is threatened. For the “jet era” of military aviation in the former Czechoslovakia and the present Czech Republic, a total of 209 aviation accidents (hereinafter “AA”) associated with crew ejection could be tracked back. A total of 227 flight staff and 1 non ‐flight staff members ejected. Of this number, a total of 37 flight staff members did not survive the ejection [1-17]. This study aims to give answers to at least three questions: “What were the main factors of the AA causes leading to ejections of crew members?” “Under what circumstances and weather conditions did these AAs occur?” and “Which scenarios or * Corresponding author: Department of Fire Protection, VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, Lumírova 13/630, CZ-700 30 Ostrava, Czech Republic. Tel.:+420 597 32 28 93, E-mail: [email protected] 6 O. Zavila and R. Chmelík factors of such scenarios may be timeless, i.e. may present a risk even today, despite technical advances in military aviation?” The authors will try to answer these and other questions in the following paragraphs. 2. Classification of Aviation Accidents and Their Causes The classification of AAs used in the study is based on the contents of the Všeob ‐P‐10 Flight Safety regulation [18], which was in force between 2006 and June 2016, being replaced by the Order of the Minister of Defence No. 13/2016 Journal – Flight Safety of 15 th June 2016 [19]. In this Order of the Minister of Defence, however, substantial changes in definitions, terminology and classification of emergency occurrences in military aviation were made. Therefore, in order to effectively synchronize data from AAs for different periods, the authors of this study chose to use the classification system based on the previous Všeob ‐P‐10 Flight Safety regulation. Most of available technical literature and archival records are based on the contents of this Všeob ‐P‐10 Flight Safety regulation, including the information base from the Information System for Logistics [16], a part of which has been used by the Air Forces of the Czech Armed Forces (hereinafter “AF ACR”) to keep records of emergency occurrences since 1985 to the present day. In conformity with the Všeob ‐P‐10 Flight Safety regulation, AAs are divided into disasters (see Section 3.1), air crashes (see Section 3.2) and damage (see Section 3.3). If the Order of the Minister of Defence No. 13/2016 Journal – Flight Safety [19] classification were used, the three types of occurrences would be categorized uniformly as aviation accidents, which would be detrimental to the clarity of the results interpreted in the study. The causes of all AAs are primarily classified under one of four factors of the event’s main cause: technical factor (hereinafter “TF”), human factor (hereinafter “HF”), environmental factor (hereinafter “EF”) and not found (hereinafter “N”). The human factor can be further subdivided into human factor – flight personnel (hereinafter “HF ‐fp”) and human factor – non ‐flight personnel (hereinafter “HF ‐np”). The technical factor includes operational degradation, design and manufacturing defects and ‘other causes’ that encompass premature destructions of suspension live ammunition (spontaneous destructions of bombs on suspension lugs or premature destructions of missiles near to the aircraft shortly after being launched). The human factor–flight personnel includes errors in command and organization (by in ‐flight personnel, i.e. pilots), errors in navigation (incorrect navigation calculations, calculations of fuel consumption, etc.), piloting (failure in mastering advanced piloting technique), using aviation equipment (unintentional errors in the use of aviation equipment), noncompliance with rules by crew (recklessness in flight), in ‐flight personnel errors (airborne collisions when pilot was hit without his fault by another aircraft) and, rarely, health reasons (such as eating errors or lifestyle), or other causes (such as aircraft destructions in real combats – downing, clashes with airspace violators). The human factor–non ‐flight personnel includes errors in command and organization (by non ‐flight personnel, i.e. air traffic controllers, meteorologists and others), errors in the military unit’s aviation engineering services (deficiencies in Ejection Causes in Military Jet Aircraft in Czechoslovakia 7 and the Czech Republic aircraft operational maintenance, servicing and repairs) and poor quality of service work in manufacturing or repair plants (e.g. deficiencies in overhauls). The environmental factors include weather conditions (atmospheric anomalies, such as lightning strikes) and foreign object ingestion with no fault of the unit’s aviation engineering services (e.g., ingestion of a part of a target for live air target practice). The group of unknown main factors of AA causes includes all cases not conclusively clarified and evidenced. Also, the stage of flight in which the emergency situation was first detected is observed: before take ‐off (“1”), take ‐off (“2”), climb (“3”), flight task (“4”), arrival (“5”), approach maneuvering (“6”), landing (“7”), after landing (“8”) and unknown (“9”). 3. Causes, Interesting Facts, Contexts and Development Trends A total of 209 AAs of various types (38 disaster AAs, 168 crash AAs and 3 damage AAs) were tracked down and analyzed for this study. The causes and links between those aviation accidents are dealt with in the following paragraphs (see Sections 3.1 to 3.4). 3.1. Ejection Causes – Disaster AAs A total of 38 AAs recorded as disasters (see Fig. 1 for an example) associated with the ejection of one or two crew members were tracked down (see Tab. 1). A total of 45 crew members were involved, out of which 41 attempted to eject (4 successfully and survived, 37 unsuccessfully and were killed). The remaining 4 crew members never even attempted to eject and were killed in the cockpit. Fig. 1 The MiG ‐15 disaster – June 16 th , 1958: (1) tailplane debris, (2) KK ‐1 type ejection seat [17] The average age of the 37 crew members killed in the ejection or its aftermath was 31. The youngest pilot was 19, the oldest one was 42. The average number of flight hours for those 37 pilots was approximately 850 with the minimum corresponding to 30 flight hours and the maximum corresponding to 2 360 flight hours. Among the unsuccessfully ejected pilots (37 pilots – 100 %), there were 12 pilots with no skill class (32.4 %), 3 pilots of skill class 3 (8.1 %), 2 pilots of skill class 2 (5.4 %), 16 pilots of skill class 1 (43.2 %) and 4 pilots with no identification of pilot 8 O. Zavila and R. Chmelík skill class (10.8 %). Pilot skill classes were introduced in the Czechoslovak Air Forces drawing on the example of the Soviet Union only in 1954. The average number of Tab. 1 Factors of the main causes of disaster AAs associated with ejection of one or two crew members in 1948–2016 and meteorological conditions under which the AAs occurred (by aircraft type and number of AAs) [1-17] Aircraft type Main cause of the AA (ejection) Meteorological conditions in the AA and version TF HF ‐fp HF‐np EF N NWCD* DWCD* NWCN* DWCN* MiG ‐15 MiG ‐15 4 17 0 0 2 18 3 2 0 MiG ‐15 bis 1 9 2 0 3 10 3 2 0 MiG ‐15 SB 2 1 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 MiG ‐15 bis SB 1 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 MiG ‐15 bis R 1 4 2 0 0 4 2 1 0 UTI MiG ‐15 4 1 0 0 2 4 2 0 1 Total for type 13 32 5 0 7 39 12 5 1 (57 = 100 %) (22.8 %) (56.1 %) (8.8 %) (0 %) (12.3 %) (68.4 %) (21 %) (8.8 %) (1.8 %) MiG ‐21 MiG ‐21 F ‐13 10 6 3 0 2 16 4 1 0 MiG ‐21 PF 4 0 0 0 3 4 2 0 1 MiG ‐21 PFM 1 2 2 2 0 3 3 0 1 MiG ‐21 R 1 1 0 0 1 2 0 1 0 MiG ‐21 MA 3 2 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 MiG ‐21 MF 3 6 0 0 0 3 3 1 2 MiG ‐21 UM 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 Total for type 22 18 6 2 6 34 13 3 4 (54 = 100 %) (40.8 %) (33.3 %) (11.1 %) (3.7 %) (11.1 %) (63 %) (24.1 %) (5.5 %) (7.4 %) Su ‐7 Su ‐7 BM 7 2 1 0 4 12 0 1 1 Su ‐7 BKL 2 2 0 0 3 5 0 1 1 Su ‐7 U 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 Total for type 9 4 1 0 8 17 1 2 2 (22 = 100 %) (40.9 %) (18.2 %) (4.5 %) (0 %) (36.4 %) (77.3 %) (4.5 %) (9.1 %) (9.1 %) MiG ‐19 MiG ‐19 S 2 3 1 0 5 6 0 2 3 MiG ‐19 P 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 MiG ‐19 PM 2 2 0 0 1 1 2 0 2 Total for type 5 5 1 0 6 7 2 3 5 (17 = 100 %) (29.4 %) (29.4