Parachuting Incidents from Jet Aircraft (2)

JUMPING FROM RUSSIAN SU-30 AIRCRAFT AT PARIS LE BOURGET AIR SHOW

During the flight demonstrations held at the Le Bourget Airshow near Paris in June 1999, Russian Pilot Averyanov and Weapon System Operator Shendrik crashed into the ground, unable to get out of the dive, during low-altitude aerobatic movements with a Russian double-seated SU-30 aircraft. From the video, the pilot enters a nose-down G-turn not far from the audience watching the shows. It starts traction as it completes its turn at very low altitude, nose down, parallel to the runway. As the altitude stops, the plane hits the ground. The plane hitting the ground catches fire at the same time. In the video, as the plane that hit the ground began to climb with its nose up, it is seen that two canopies and the pilots took off at an estimated 200 feet, then the two parachutes opened and the pilots landed a little far from the plane, very close to each other. The video showing this accident happening second to second can be found and watched on the Internet. After this incident, some articles in the western press reported that the Russian pilots' parachuting out of the crashed plane in front of thousands of spectators was a good advertisement for the Russian combat aircraft industry and its superior technology.

EVENT OCCURRED IN THE GERMAN F-4F FLEET

This sad accident, which I will tell, occurs in one of the F-4F squadrons of the German Air Force. In this case, the pilots come to land with a direct approach after completing the flight mission. After the pilot flying in the front cockpit puts his wheel on the runway, the Weapon System Operator (SSO) flying behind unties his shoulder straps. A tire on one of the plane's main landing gear bursts during the landing roll. The pilot could not keep the plane on the runway with a flat tire and landed on the ground. Outside the runway, the ground must be uneven, so the pilot decides to jump with a parachute and pulls the ejection ring, thinking that his plane might break and be damaged in this rough terrain and he might be injured in the damaged plane. When the ejection ring of the F-4 aircraft is removed from the front pilot area, the ejection system of the Weapon System Operator flying in the rear pilot area also works automatically, and first the canopy and then the pilot's chair are thrown out of the aircraft. Since the Weapon System Operator, who was thrown into the air from the rear cockpit, had previously loosened his shoulder straps in the landing roll, and had separated himself from the mechanism that attaches himself to the parachute when he jumped into the air, he falls from that height without a parachute and dies. The parachute of the pilot flying in the front cockpit opens and lands comfortably. This fatal accident is mind-blowing! Things happen in aviation that shouldn't happen!

PARACHILIPPING INCIDENTS IN TURKISH AIR FORCE JET FLEETS

In this incident that took place on 9 June 1960 in Merzifon, Lieutenant Adnan Akgün, who was number 4 on the F-86 Anti-Fighting Arm airdrop mission, collided with the leader of the firing arm, Major General İsmet Akıncı, and jettisoned from his plane, which went into a reverse spin. without pulling his arm, he was separated by gravity and after his parachute opened, he landed in the sea, and was rescued by a fishing motor that came to the scene from Gerze. Kur. Major İsmet Akıncı was unfortunately martyred in this accident. I was flying as number 3 of the 4 arm in the collision that took place on the Black Sea, off Gerze that day. Just as I was about to approach and fire at the round target in a firing pattern, I heard the round pilot say over the radio, "Fire collides". At that moment, when I left the target game and looked to the upper left, I saw that one of the planes turned into a ball of fire and dispersed in the air like confetti. I watched the other plane turn in a reverse spin and descend from that altitude to very close to sea level, and a parachute opened at a very low altitude close to the sea level. The survivor of the accident, Number 4 Adnan Akgün, later told us about the collision and how he escaped with a parachute as follows:

Lieutenant While Akgün was taking a position to dive to the target round at 16,000 feet, with a right turn at the purge point (about 1 mile from the channel target, at an altitude of 4,000 feet, at the peak for diving), he suddenly collided with the other plane and his plane went into a reverse spin. Back against the canopy with a negative "G" effect in an inverted spin. With the negative "G" effect on him, he could not reach the ejection arm, which is located under the right of the pilot's seat, by extending his right hand. While the plane was losing altitude towards the sea, it tried to reach the ejection arm many times with its hand, but failed. When he realized that he couldn't pull the ejection arm, he thought that at least let me untie my shoulder straps and open the canopy so that when the plane crashes into the sea, maybe I'll jump out of the cockpit and not go to the bottom of the sea with the plane. After undoing the shoulder straps, he manually opened the canopy with the switch on the upper left of the cockpit. When the canopy was blown away by the wind, the shoulder straps were also untied, so it was thrown out of the cockpit by the body weight and negative "G" effect. 

. The ejection system of the F-86 had a "Zero Second Ring" attached to the parachute's shutter, so that there would be no delay in opening the parachute when ejecting at low altitudes. During the climb, this ring was removed and attached to its place on the parachute at the control of 5,000 feet. Only in low-altitude flights and air/air and air/ground shooting missions, this ring was left attached to the pilot's seat from takeoff. Lieutenant When Akgün jumped out of the cockpit, the "Zero Second Ring" attached to the chair pulled the shutter handle of the parachute, causing the parachute to open. On this occasion, I made my dear brother Adnan Akgün's ears ring.

THE AIR COLLISION OF TWO F-86 IN MERZIFON IN 1959

One of the most interesting and unforgettable events for me, parachuting from jet planes, is the event that always brings a smile to my face when I think of it. In the spring of 1959, when the accident took place, First Lieutenant Selahattin Yılmaz from the Merzifon 143rd (now 152nd) Squadron takes off from the runway in two arms to give induction flight training to the newly appointed Lieutenant Ayhan Ece. In a region between Terme and Ünye, which they chose as their work site, while they were training in arm flight between 10,000 - 15,000 feet, displacements in the arm, transition to follow and follow-up, bank, diving, climbing training, a misfortune occurs and two planes collide in the air. From the colliding aircraft, both pilots leave the aircraft using their ejection systems and land safely at some intervals. As interesting as it is, before I tell about this parachuting incident that brings a smile to my face whenever I think of it, I should give some information about the features of the ejection systems that we used in those years, especially for my young pilot friends to be informed.

In those years, T-33, F-84, F-86 type aircraft in our inventory did not have an automatic ejection system. When the pilot decided to jump out of the plane, he was doing the following. First, the arm under the right of the chair is pulled up and made ready for ejection. At the same time, the arm under the left of the chair is pulled and the shoulder straps are locked. When the trigger under the right arm is pulled, the throwing chair is thrown into the air. In the air, the pilot first unlocks the shoulder straps at the level of the navel and gets rid of the shoulder straps. Afterwards, he pushes the pilot's chair he is sitting on with both feet, leaves the chair he is sitting on, and pulls the D-ring (D-Ring) at chest level and opens his parachute. If the pilot had to parachute at high altitudes above 15,000 feet, he does not open his parachute until he descends below an estimated 15,000 feet after ejection, and when he descends below that estimated altitude, he pulls the D-ring and opens his parachute. My fellow pilots, who fly with the zero speed/zero feet automatic ejection system in F-4 and F-16s, must have been very surprised when they read this manual jumping procedure that I have just described. These two of our friends, who collided in the air at around 10,000 feet that day, did not receive any injuries during the collision, and by following the methods I described above, they parachute out of the plane and open their parachutes with manual methods. When we learned that our friends were taken to Samsun State Hospital by the Gendarmerie teams who came to the scene after the accident, we went to Samsun with our friends from the fleet to say get well soon and learned the story of the incident from them.

According to our friends, Lieutenant Ayhan Ece, who was parachuting down, landed on a high tree and hung on the branch of the tree with his parachute. Villagers working in the nearby field immediately ran towards the tree. They were very upset to see our friend hanging from the tree with his parachute. They talked among themselves about how to do it, and somehow they rescued our friend from his parachute, which was hanging on the branch of the tree, and took him down. One of the villagers, who was extremely upset that our friend was hanging on that high tree with his parachute, got very angry as if the tree was to blame for the pilot's tripping on the tree, and said in the sweet Black Sea accent, "Oh, I'm going to cut down this tree".

Our other friend, First Lieutenant Selahattin Yılmaz, whom we went to visit at the hospital, landed in a field about 500 meters ahead of the tree where Lieutenant Ayhan Ece's parachute was mounted. At that time, the villagers were working in the field. One of them came running up to First Lieutenant Yılmaz with an anchor in his hand. He waved the huge anchor in his hand towards Ütğm Yılmaz and asked in a sweet Black Sea accent: “Are you Turkish or Russian?” When First Lieutenant Yılmaz said that he was a Turkish pilot on duty at Merzifon Air Base, the villager threw the anchor in his hand and hugged him! In the 1950s and 60s, when the cold war was in progress, the military power of the Soviet Union at that time, not only in Turkey, but also all over the world, and due to a slightly exaggerated propaganda, aroused anxiety against the power and the effects of the Soviet Union army and Air Force on the public. 

It had created sighs and fears. For this reason, it is very natural that the first reaction of the local people to a pilot who descends from the sky to his field in the region they live in is asking whether that pilot is Russian or Turkish.

GROUND EJECTION EVENT ON F-102 AIRCRAFT AT MÜRTED BASE

In this incident, which took place in Ankara / Murted Air Base in September 1973, at the then 182nd F-102 Squadron, Lieutenant Gürol Kutlu filled the cockpit with smoke right after his F-102A plane took off from runway 03 to the north. He reports the situation to the tower and takes a right turn, deciding to turn back and land at the 03 runway head. When it takes the final turn to meet runway 03, it runs short to the runway and the plane hits the ground very hard. With the excessive "G" force that occurs when the plane hits the ground hard, the canopy and the pilot's chair spontaneously fly out and the pilot's parachute opens. When the plane, which has just taken off and has a full fuel load, hits the ground, the plane catches fire. Here, the pilot has a great misfortune and at the point where he lands, his parachute ignites with the flame of the burning plane and starts to burn. In those years, the entrance road to Mürted Square from the TEM highway was not built as it is now. It was possible to reach Mürted Base from Ankara via Ayaş road. After entering the Murted road from the Ayaş turn, while approaching the old guardhouse, there is a village on the right, close to the guardhouse. While we were going to work, we would see peasant women working in groups in the fields on the right and left of the road. That day, peasant women were working as usual in a field very close to the point where the plane crashed. A middle-aged woman, who was in the immediate vicinity of the burning plane, bravely runs to the pilot whose parachute is on fire, without fear of fire, and saves the semi-conscious pilot by pulling him by the body. Whenever I think of the fearless behavior of this brave-hearted peasant woman who saved the pilot of a crashed plane, whose parachute was on fire, and brought her back to life, I remember her with great love, respect and gratitude.

JUMPING FROM F-100F PLANE COLLISION WITH T-33 IN ESKISEHIR

One of the low-altitude ejection events that stick in my mind is the collision of a Canadian T-33 Mk3 jet trainer and a pair of command F-100F aircraft in a landing pattern in Eskişehir in 1958, and the two pilots of the F-100F aircraft jumping by parachute to escape. In July 1964, the Jet Training Fleet was stationed in Eskişehir between 1957 -1964 before devolving to Çiğli Base. After completing my piloting training in the USA, I joined the Merzifon F-86 fleet in August 1958. In January 1959, I was sent to the instrument flight instructor course in Eskişehir Jet Training Fleet. In 1961, I was appointed as a flight instructor. The collision of the T-33 and the F-100, which took place in Eskişehir in 1958, was talked about so much that the details of the incident kept their freshness in my memory.

Double-seated F-100F aircraft (image below)

Twin T-33A Trainer (image above)

Jet Training Squadron's call name was "Bee". Every six months, about 80-90 student pilots who successfully completed their propeller training in İzmir / Gaziemir would fly like bees in order to give a good training to the pilots, befitting the name of the fleet. In the training flights and especially at the beginning of the training program, where we had the students take off and land, the presence of many different types of aircraft in Eskişehir Square put us flight instructors in a difficult situation. In those years, Eskişehir Base had the 111th, 112th and 113th F-100 squadrons, the 114th RF-84F Reconnaissance Squadron, the 141st F-86 Fighter/ Intercept Squadron and the Jet Training Squadron. In addition to the jets, there would be heavy flight traffic in the square with the Liaison guard and transport planes. In order to send our student to a solo flight after the first 8-10 sortie flights, when we came to the landing at the end of our aerial work, we would like to have our student train at least 5-6 landings with a short tour. was our arrival. Because the pylon, leeward leg and landing pattern of the F-100 aircraft had to be made much wider than the T-33 due to the characteristics of this aircraft, we would have to follow it and lose a lot of time for short tour landings. If we had entered the first approach from the back of an F-100 aircraft, we would not have been able to make our student make a sufficient number of short tour landings. When we gathered at the bar with fellow F-100 members at the Evening Officer's Club, we told them, "You made quite a few cross-country flights today in the landing pattern!" We used to hang out and joke. In 1958, a T-33 Mk3 aircraft collided with an F-100F aircraft in a landing pattern, along with other factors, this heavy flight traffic probably had an impact.

In that day's incident, instructor pilot First Lieutenant Burhan Ulukan was flying at the fore pilot area of ​​the dual-pilot F-100F, and Captain Bayer, for whom he had made an adjustment flight, was flying at the rear pilot area. At the end of the navigation mission, the pilots approach the square from an altitude of 20,000 feet with TACAN and start descending for a direct landing on runway 27 with the instruction of the tower.

At that time, two instructor pilots First Lieutenant Bülent Tulunay and First Lieutenant Doğan Yeşil, who were on a training flight on the T-33 Mk3 aircraft with tail number 237, report point A to the tower and enter the first approach for landing on runway 27. As the T-33 aircraft pulls off the wing and enters the final turn to meet the main runway, they collide with the F-100F aircraft, which is on final approach for a direct descent landing on runway 27, at approximately 1,000 feet in mid-air. At the time of the collision, the two pilots of the F-100F aircraft, without a single second delay, pull their ejection levers and parachute, escaping without a scratch on them. In this collision, about half of the right wing and part of the tail of the T-33 aircraft were shattered and severed, but First Lieutenant Tulunay, seeing that the flight controls obeyed, continued to fly in this way and landed. This point is very interesting! Both of the two instructor pilots in the T-33 don't see what the object they hit is and they think they hit a large flock of birds!

Hearing about the mid-air collision, his friends in the squadron came to the parking lot and were shocked to see that the T-33's right wing and tail were almost half severed. They are even more shocked when their squadron mates tell First Lieutenant Tulunay and First Lieutenant Yeşil that the object they hit was not a large flock of birds, but an F-100 plane. Especially when they get off the pilot's seat and see the fragmented wing and tail of the plane, they are shocked and say, "How did we land with this plane!" they say. Anything can happen in aviation. In a chain of errors, two planes approached and collided. However, there is only one thing that is done right in this collision event where there are so many wrongs. That is, F-100F pilots colliding with another aircraft pull their ejection levers without a second delay. The continuation of this story is very sad. The Canadian structure T-33 MK3 type aircraft with tail number 237 in the collision had another accident during the training flight after the Jet Training Fleet transferred from Eskişehir to Çiğli in 1964. In this accident, unfortunately, the teacher pilot and his student crashed during a training flight and both of them were martyred.

JUMP OF PILOT WITH VERTIGO IN NIGHT FLIGHT IN F-5 IN MERZIFON

In the incident that occurred at Merzifon 5th Base in 1985, the dual F-5A aircraft arm is taking off for night navigation duty. While approaching the square at the end of the mission, the number two Lieutenant pilot on the leader's arm says he has entered an abnormal situation and jumps with a parachute. The lead pilot sees the number 2 parachute open. It follows from a distance that the pilotless F-5 aircraft continues to fly with light glides, light climbs and very light leans, without losing much altitude. The lead pilot takes off and lands without hitting critical fuel. In order to follow the pilotless plane in the air, another pilot gets up and continues to follow the plane. Pilotless F-5A aircraft 

After flying on its own for about 45 minutes, it crashes into an uninhabited wasteland when its fuel runs out.

JUMPING FROM F-100F AIRCRAFT AT THE PILOFT IN ESKISEHIR, APPROXIMATELY 1,500 FEET

While I was writing about skydiving at low altitudes and in critical situations in this article, I remembered the incident experienced by Mehmet Sayan, who parachuted from a dual-control F-100F aircraft in Eskişehir in 1971 and we flew in the same squadron with F-86s in Merzifon. Mehmet Sayan, who passed away two years after me, was our friend who is our orchestra conductor and who plays the saxophone in the Merzifon Üs orchestra, where we play the accordion. Mehmet Sayan told me about the parachuting incident as follows. A newly assigned pilot to the F-100 fleet is in the rear cockpit for induction training, and the pilot, who has been trained in the front cockpit, comes to land after completing the aerial work. When they enter with the first approach and reach the point where they pull the pyrofoil, the engine stops. Without hesitation, Mehmet Sayan said to the pilot he had adjusted at the pre-pilot station, "Jump!" she shouts. Without hesitation, he pulls the trigger under the ejection lever. When Mehmet Sayan pulls the trigger, the canopy pops up. That millisecond moment seems too long to him. Thinking for a moment that the chair hasn't popped up, he nods to the lower right, toward the ejection trigger, and the chair pops up and his parachute opens. However, at the moment of jumping, he should keep his head upright on the head of the back of the chair, but since he tilts his head slightly to the right, there is an injury between the sixth and seventh spines in the neck region due to the throwing of the chair with a big "G". Due to severe neck pain and numbness in his right arm and hand caused by this injury, he undergoes prolonged physical therapy and recovers. Mehmet Sayan has been serving as a captain pilot for a long time at Turkish Airlines, which he entered after completing his compulsory service as a Fleet Commander at Konya F-100 Base with the rank of Major. On this occasion, I made my dear friend Mehmet Sayan's ears ring!

ZERO FEET JUMP EVENT WITH F-104G IN ANKARA / MÜRTED

This event, which I will explain now, is one of the critical parachuting events that occurred in the Turkish and foreign air forces, which all pilots should take the most lessons from. The incident happened in 1984, one of the pilots of the 141st Fleet of Akıncı 4th Base Command, Captain. It occurred on the runway, during the take-off rule, while Sırrı Tahmaz was taking off for a test flight with his F-104G aircraft. Captain Tahmaz (later one of the captain pilots of THY) is assigned for the test flight of an F-104G aircraft, which is undergoing major maintenance, one day at the Base Maintenance Command. He releases the brakes after performing the on-track checks for the north departure from the 03 runway of the Square. In the pylon fuel tankless configuration of the F-104, at the take-off speed of 180 knots, it starts back pressure on the lever to slightly raise the nose. In the meantime, the aircraft is close to the middle of the runway, after the nose is off the ground, the lever is locked and the nose continues to move up. At that moment, Lieutenant Commander Tahmaz pulls the ejection arm of the chair without a second delay, and as the plane slides under it on the runway, his parachute opens and lands safely in a few seconds! Indeed, it is necessary to congratulate Captain Tahmaz wholeheartedly! This is what you call a pilot who puts his reflex, mind, intelligence, knowledge of aircraft together and puts them all together in seconds and applies them just in time!

An F-104 in the parking lot (image below)

PILOTS' AIRCRAFT LANDING WITHOUT A PILOTS AT ESKISEHIR, AFTER F-4E PLACE ENTERED A Flock of Birds on the Last Approach

In the incident that took place in Eskişehir on 20 November 1984, the parachute jump of two pilots from an F-4E aircraft that was on final approach for landing and the landing of the pilotless aircraft on the runway without being damaged was one of the firsts in the history of world aviation.

This is how it happens. Pilot Captain in the front cockpit of the F-4E aircraft, tail number 77-0293, which came to land for runway 09 over the city, and Pilot First Lieutenant in the rear cockpit, enter the first approach for the drill duty return, landing, pull the pilot and meet the runway with the last turn. A short distance from the runway on the final approach, the plane enters a flock of birds. The pilot flying behind decides to jump immediately after the violent noise and jolt caused by the crash of the flock of birds into the plane and pulls the ejection ring. As a feature of the ejection systems of the F-4E aircraft, when the ejection ring is pulled in one of the two cockpits, the rear canopy-rear-seat-front-canopy-front-seat are separated from the aircraft at intervals of 0.75 seconds. In this case, both pilot seats are ejected in the same order, and the parachutes of both pilots open and land on the ground. The pilot must have made a very good fletner adjustment on the final approach, because the plane continues to descend with a normal glide angle and comes and makes a nice landing into the runway on its own. After the plane has covered some distance on the runway, it comes to the ground on a hard and flat surface from the side of the runway at a low speed and stops after a while. The plane is taking off from its location. The parts of the aircraft that have already suffered minor damage are repaired by the experienced engineers and technical experts of Eskişehir Air Supply and Maintenance Center, which we are always proud of, and the aircraft is given to the fleet. Friends in the fleet want to document the landing of the plane without a pilot on the runway without a pilot after it has been repaired, with a very clever and good humor, and they have a pilot's badge pattern drawn on the fuselage of the plane. How unfortunate was this F-4E with tail number 77-0293, that on 20 August 1986, while performing a shooting mission at the Osmaniye shooting range near Eskişehir, it again entered the flock of birds, as it did in the final approach. The pilots of the stopped plane parachute without any delay. The plane crashes into an empty field about 1 mile northeast of the Osmaniye firing range, and this is the last flight of plane 293.

ACCIDENTS CAUSED BY HIGH AOA ON F-4 AIRCRAFT

I would like to tell you about two separate accidents, which are so similar to each other that they are copies of each other, which resulted in death due to high AOA (Angle Of Attack) on F-4E aircraft in the past years. One of the two accidents I mentioned was during the pilot's avoidance movement after the low altitude attack training; the other occurred during the air combat training of the two aircraft. In both accidents, the pilots entered the abnormal state due to excessive lean and high AOA as a result of the traction control and could not get out of the abnormal situation. In both accidents, it was decided too late to jump with a parachute. In both accidents, one of the pilots survived and the other pilot unfortunately died.

NOTE: What is high AOA? In the F-4 aircraft, which has a different aerodynamic feature than other warplanes, if the pilot gives excessive control on the lever during climbing, diving and pulling movements, the aircraft can enter an abnormal state.

F-4E ACCIDENT RESULTING FROM HIGH AOA CLOSE TO KONYA

Eskişehir 1st Main Jet Base, an F-4E 2020 aircraft of the 112th Squadron crashed around Konya on 5 March 2015, and our two pilots with the rank of Staff Captain were martyred in the accident. At the end of the examination, it was announced that the aircraft entered an abnormal state in the air due to high AOA while the pilots were training to avoid SAM missiles at low altitude, and the pilots could not get out of this situation and crashed into the ground.

F-4E ACCIDENT RESULTING FROM HIGH AOA IN SIVRIHISAR CLOSE

Pilot Captain at the fore-pilot of an F-4E aircraft of Eskişehir 1st Main Jet Base Command, Weapons System Operator (SSO) Captain at the rear pilot station are taking off for a low-altitude attack training mission against ground targets. Pilot Captain makes a simulated avoidance of anti-aircraft and missile fires after attacking a ground target. During this movement, it enters the abnormal state from the high AOA state characteristic of F-4 aircraft. Even though it is very close to the ground, it is late in parachuting. When he was about to hit the ground, Captain SSO, flying in the rear pilot area, pulls the ejection ring, his parachute opens and he escapes. But before the parachute of the Pilot Captain flying in front opens, the plane crashes to the ground around Eskişehir - Çifteler, and unfortunately the pilot in front is martyred. If this pilot hadn't been too late to pull the ejection ring, he would be alive today.

F-4E ACCIDENT OCCURRED AS A RESULT OF HIGH AOA IN LOCAL TUZZ

As part of the Basic Hunting Maneuvers Training program given at Konya 3rd Main Jet Base Command on March 17, 2009, the double F-4E branch takes off from the Konya runway. Following their interception under radar control, the two arms engage in air combat at around 10,000 feet. During the bank and traction maneuver during air combat, the aircraft enters an abnormal state from high AOA. The pilot is unable to exit the abnormal situation and is too low to the ground. 

It pulls the ejection ring to skydive at a low altitude. Both pilots leave the plane and both their parachutes open. One of the pilots lands safely somewhere near the plane. But what a great misfortune that the other pilot's parachute ignited from the flame of the plane, which fell to the ground and burst into flames a little further from the place he was floating in the air, and unfortunately he was martyred. As in the accident I described before, this pilot would have been with us today had he not been late in his jump.

F-4E ACCIDENT RESULTING FROM HIGH AOA IN AFYON

Unfortunately, one of the accidents that occurred due to entering an abnormal state from High AOA on F-4E aircraft, unfortunately, occurred when I was the 1st Main Jet Base Commander in Eskişehir. On November 10, 1982, when the accident took place, all of the Base Personnel, our Great Leader and Eternal Commander-in-Chief, gathered to commemorate Atatürk on the anniversary of his death, and we held a ceremony where we commemorate him with love, respect, longing and mercy. At noon on the same day, they informed me that one of our F-4E aircraft from the 111th Squadron had crashed and that our two pilots were martyred. In that day's flight program, the task was written as performing an intercept mission under the control of the Kütahya radar, and air combat training at the end of the intercepts, after the dual F-4E arms took off one by one in pursuit. As written in the program, two planes come under the control of Kütahya radar after takeoff. After the first intercept and air combat, the planes separate from each other and make the second intercept under radar control. Airplanes engage in air combat after making eye contact at the end of their intercept between 10,000 and 15,000 feet. Aircraft number two enters an abnormal state during the aircraft's scissoring motion. The plane, which could not get out of its abnormal situation, crashes around Gökçeyayla Village of Emirdağ district and our two pilots are martyred. As the Base Commander, the fact that these pilots, who entered an abnormal situation at an altitude of 10,000-15,000 feet, remained in the plane until they hit the ground with such an altitude below them, and that they could not pull the ejection lever, hurt me a lot.

Our article on PARACHILIPPING FROM JET AIRCRAFTS has been quite long, but I thought it would be useful to share my experiences and opinions on this subject with my fellow pilots, within the framework of sincere self-criticism, in our Air Force, which I have always been proud to serve for a lifetime.

I wonder why these friends of ours were late in parachuting in the events that resulted in the martyrdom of our pilots? Why did these friends of ours stay in the plane until the last moment and not pull the ejection lever, while the engine stopped in the air, or a fire broke out in the engine, or it went into an abnormal situation in the air for some reason and the plane was losing altitude rapidly? I can list my thoughts on this subject like a pilot checklist for you as follows:

1. In some cases, pilots see leaving the plane as a source of pride. This is a very wrong thought. A good pilot should pull the ejection arm or ring and jump with a parachute without delay even for a second, if the engine of his plane has stopped in the air, if there is a fire in the engine of his plane, if he has entered an abnormal state due to vertigo or high AOA, and especially if these situations occur below an altitude of 10,000 feet. Making abandonment a matter of pride has no place in the aviation profession!

2. Pilots may have the thought of losing the plane by parachuting. This is a completely wrong thought. A new plane can be bought, but the pilot who left does not come back!

3. It is also mentioned that the plane is reluctant to jump due to the fear of damage to the area where it will crash. In my personal opinion, it is against the rules of the piloting profession for a pilot to have such a feeling. If attention is paid, while the accidents that resulted in the martyrdom of our pilots are covered in the newspaper news, the newspapers write the news in a way that the pilot heroically sacrificed himself in order not to crash the plane in a village, town or a residential neighborhood, as if he were pulling it out of the archive. If a pilot has encountered one of the conditions mentioned in the 1st item above, he must fulfill the requirements of the piloting profession and jump with a parachute. Of course, if a pilot's flight position and altitude are suitable, he can divert the plane to an uninhabited area before giving the parachuting command. But the pilot's not leaving the plane until the plane hits the ground has nothing to do with heroism.

I would like to take this opportunity to convey the following message to all my fellow pilots who will read this article and still serve in the ranks of our Air Force:

My dear pilot friends;

1) If your engine stopped in mid-air or there was a fire on the plane

2) or if you have entered an abnormal state for any reason,

3) or if you have experienced an event such as a mid-air collision, and most importantly, these events have happened to you below 10,000 feet altitude, a single second to pull the ejection lever; yes, don't delay for a single second so you can have your mother and father in tears behind you. 

Do not leave spouses, children, friends and friends! On this occasion, I wish you all the best in your flights.

Contact: [email protected]