Warbird Information Exchange

This just came out, both pilots ejected, it sounds like they are o.k.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAEWIxlIOwM

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/loc ... ypsilanti/

I'm just glad the Soviet ejection seats worked. In older Mig models, the seats have sometimes been unreliable and a few of them have serious limitations on them. I don't know about this particular seat model though. This could have ended very badly.

This story was posted on "The Warzone". Includes clips.

Private MiG-23 Flogger Crashes In Michigan
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/p ... n-michigan

We were just talking about this airplane today at the airport. A fellow EAA'r said it was his favorite plane at Oshkosh with the Mig 29. I really enjoyed seeing it and it looked awesome in it's display. Haven't seen a swing wing aircraft at an airshow in many years. Reminded me of the FB-111. Anyway, a few interesting things about this video; 1) the engine is running until it hits the ground. 2) it is in a shallow bank and shallow descent. It never changes bank angle or appear to have any differing control inputs in the video.
Is this a "fly by wire" design? Why wouldn't they have increased thrust or even hit the afterburners to gain altitude? IT's a single engine design and maybe they lost control of the engine computer, the hydraulic, autopilot, or swing wing system. Suspect some kind of catastrophic system failure.
Hate to say it, but it's reminiscent of the Dale Snodgrass loss video where none of the controls moved whatsoever.
Glad the pilots survived and it will be a fascinating NTSB report.

While the engine seems to be running, it doesn't sound like it was much above idle, its not very loud, which given the altitude and wings extended for low level, low speed flight, you'd expect it be be at a higher thrust level..............so, wonder if as you say, the pilot was just getting no response from the engine when he was trying to apply thrust, and at that height, there was not much else they could do if that was the case...........and reading up on the bang seats, they are not zero-zero, and have quite an involved seat initiation process, so the crew were quite lucky to get out.......and the fact both seats actually worked!

Looks like the a/c just missed hitting an apartment block when it!!

Thank goodness the crew is OK and no one was injured.

_________________
Share your story: Rutgers Oral History Archive http://oralhistory.rutgers.edu/

There must have been an associated flight control failure also because I can't see them bailing out over a populated area to let it crash and take out people on the ground. The apartment dwellers are really lucky.

I was there, yesterday he requested to do 4 passes and they told him 3, 2 F-35's had launched an hour before and were returning to Ypsi and they didn't want him to get in the way [same scenario today], I was disappointed as the 23 is a kick to see in the air.

Today he did I would say 3 or 4 rip roaring passes right over my sun tent, he banked to my left and sometimes I follow jets like this as long as I can see them, sometimes not. I tracked him for a while and saw a clear puff of black smoke, wasn't all that close and his rear was not facing me so I didn't hear anything ,,, But airboss or tower said "Mig 23, say type of emergency" [I didn't hear him declare emergency, must have been scanning and missed it] That caught my attention obviously and I said to my uncle, hey, the Mig declared an emergency. Tower said again, Mig 23, are you declaring an emergency ?

There was no reply to either query, as he was saying this the Mig slowed down drastically, never good to see a hot jet slow down [I think they had ejected just before I saw this, which explains why airboss got no reply]. The jet then did a slight left bank and went nose down and was seconds from impact, as this point I looked away, didn't want to see him crash. When I looked again there was a roiling cloud of black smoke ,, I didn't see any ejections and was under the impression they both went in because I saw no chutes, so was very depressed until I heard on the scanner that they were pulled from the lake, and there were no casualties on the ground.

I drove by the crash scene an hour later, looks like a near miracle the jet missed the apartment complexes all around . My guess is flameout.

The fact the crew went for a post-flight swim in the lake would maybe indicate they were trying to put the MIG in the lake when they banged out.

_________________
Those who possess real knowledge are rare.

Those who can set that knowledge into motion in the physical world are rarer still.

The few who possess real knowledge and can set it into motion of their own hands are the rarest of all.

Several pics in article.

https://www.freep.com/picture-gallery/n ... 349703001/

I'm certain the crew did all they could to get the thing pointed in a non-catastrophic direction, but I don't think it's possible to overstate how ridiculously LUCKY it was that the jet wound up where it did... it somehow missed one of The Waverly apartment units, and did not continue out onto I-94. Another second or two of flight, and it would've wound up directly on I-94 or in the rest area across from the apartment complex.

That's not likely to go un-noticed by the FAA.

I'm very glad the crew are ok, but immensely relieved there wasn't a catastrophe on the ground.

Lynn

It doesn't take much imagination to see how this could have been so much worse for the pilots and those on the ground, especially given the proximity to I-94, apartments and other residences. Extremely thankful that everyone is ok!

As an aside, I don't recall hearing of many successful ejections from civilian-owned jet warbirds. I remember hearing about a couple ejections from Draken International jets, but no others come to mind.

_________________
Matt

We had a successful ejection from a privately owned Hunter in the UK, it was enroute somewhere over Wales and as I recall the airframe tent-pegged into marshland by the Dovey Estuary. Pilot suffered back injuries.

Not a good look just a few weeks after the events at Oshkosh and less than a year after what happened down in Texas.

Only if you are a glass half empty type.

_________________
Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

Indeed, it could have been sooooo much worse...!
Had it hit one of the apartment blocks or impacted across the I-94 this could have been the USA's "Shoreham tragedy"

As you say, this may all not go un-noticed by the FAA.