Bizarre Emergency Landings: A Royal Dutch Air-Force F-16’s Gun Hits the Plane. A French Air Force Passenger “Accidentally” Ejected in Flight
An F-16 fighter jet was hit by its own gun with the side being damaged, and parts of the ammunition ending up in the engine during a training exercise above Vliehors on Vlieland on January 21st. Defense Security Inspectorate announcement in April was reported by NU.nl, The F-16’s is equipped with a 20 mm caliber and shoots around 6 thousand cartridges per minute. Both fighter jets involved in the training landed safely at Leeuwarden Air Base, with the damaged F-16 making an emergency landing after experiencing.
There is one previous incident of record in September 1956, of such a bizarre mishap , Military Times reported, which involved pilot Thomas W. Attridge Jr. who was not so lucky as the Dutch pilot.
At an altitude of 20,000 feet, Attridge entered into a dive to 7,000 feet while firing the Tiger’s 20mm rotary cannon. After Attridge exhausted the gun’s ammunition, he felt a hit, assuming a bird was crashing into the plane. Unable to make it to the runway, he crashed into trees, breaking several bones. Investigation found that the planes own ammo had hit the plane.
In another bizarre training incident this year, as told but the Aviationist, a civilian passenger was unexpectedly ejected from a French Air Force twin-seat Rafale B fighter jet as the aircraft was taking off from Saint-Dizier 113 air base on Mar. 20, 2019.
The passenger was not identified, but assumed to be a journalist or official who was invited to fly along with the pilot for the observation flight.
The author of the article, David Cenciotti, founder of the Aviationist, who has been invited to fly along in French Air Force Rafale jets on similar training missions, noted: “We have no clue what activated the ejection: it might have been a voluntary ejection, an involuntary one or even a failure, even though modern ejection seats are extremely reliable and malfunctions are extremely rare.
The Rafale Is equipped with an ejectable MkF16F seat. The 64 year old passenger was taken to hospital and treated for back and other injures, but his condition was not serious.
Both recent incidents are under investigation.