Air Force instructor pilot killed when ejection seat activated on the ground

WASHINGTON — An Air Force instructor pilot was killed when the ejection seat deployed while the plane was still on the ground at a military base in Texas, the Air Force said Tuesday.

The instructor pilot was in a T-6A Texan II at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas, when the seat was activated during ground operations on Monday. The pilot was taken to a hospital and died Tuesday, the Air Force said. The pilot’s name was withheld pending notification of next of kin.

The T-6A Texan II is a single-engine, two-seat aircraft that serves as a primary trainer for Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps pilots. During a training flight, an instructor can sit in the front or back seat; both have lightweight Martin-Baker ejection seats activated by a lever on the seat.

In 2022, the T-6 fleet and hundreds of other Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps jets were grounded after inspections revealed a possible defect with a component of the ejection seat cartridge-driven devices, or CADs . The fleet was inspected and in some cases the CADs were replaced.

When activated, the cartridge explodes and the ejection procedure begins.

Ejection seats are said to have saved the lives of pilots, but they have also failed at critical moments in plane crashes. Investigators have identified ejection seat failure as a partial cause of an F-16 crash that killed 1st Lt. David Schmitz, 32, in June 2020.

In 2018, four members of a B-1 bomber crew earned the Distinguished Flying Cross when, while their plane was on fire, they discovered that one of the four ejection seats was malfunctioning. Instead of jumping, the entire crew decided to stay in the burning plane and land it, giving them all the best chance of survival. The entire crew survived.