Su-34/Su-24 Crew Reportedly Killed After Ground Ejection System Failure

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basaltgranite@reddit

Did this event also destroy the aircraft? It seems likely that a rocket-propelled ejector seat activating inside a shelter would be a Bad Thing for the aircraft. The article doesn't say. The Good Denizens of this Sub might have informed opinions on that point though.

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MillionFoul@reddit

It certainly did a lot of damage, but with how expensive fighter jets are it's probably still economical to repair it. After all, the USAF did literally stitch two totaled F-35s back into one functional jet because they could, and they have a lot more spares than Russia does.

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Dapper_Following685@reddit

Woah I never heard of this. When did the USAF hobble together an F35 from two broken ones?

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MillionFoul@reddit

Yeah they took that one that threw an engine blade through the fuselage in 2014 and stitched its nose onto a jet that had a nose gear collapse and ruin the forward structure in 2020. Started work in 2022 and the jet went to a sqaudron in March 2025.

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Dapper_Following685@reddit

Jesus Christ I'd hate to see the Air Forces manpower and estimated cost for that singular repair, including the routine and scheduled maintenance until it was deemed serviceable.

Something tells me that that would be over and above the estimated lifetime airframe maintenance cost they paid for, at least for the jet that became serviceable. Crazy that it threw an engine blade. I legit didn't know that was an option.

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MillionFoul@reddit

They claim the repairs cost a bit under $12M, which is put against the cost of acquiring a new F-35A for a savings of somewhere around $63M. The dudes doing the work get paid regardless, so I assume that's all material and engineering support cost from Lockheed.

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Dapper_Following685@reddit

From five years in Marine aviation maintenance on V-22s, my experience was hangar queens are hangar queens for a reason. And that without damage. We had to get one up and out of the hangar due to a high level decision from someone in MAWTS (bird hadnt flown in 9 to 12 months, forget the number), it took a few months and tons of parts, a third of maintenance on both day and night crew when the next step was flightline specific, maybe half the time, more so once we could turn engines and find problems, and we were undermanned and it was so the bird could go on deployment so this was also during pre-deployment work ups, so I have very negative experiences with fixing problem birds.

Theres only so many bodies. From what I hear, F35 maintenance at all levels is top secret clearance, even the grunt work. And a Lockheed civilian comes with with to look over their shoulder the entire time to make sure the high-school graduates doing grease monkey things dont mess it up.

Combing the two experiences...I'd...absolutely...hate...fixing those birds. Especially a damaged one. But, if it really did save $63 million, then I cant complain sitting in my cushioned chair not turning wrenches anymore.

But I'd say the manpower would probably agree it was spent elsewhere, even if for a good cause, because we're really good at complaining.

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jdmgto@reddit

Dunno, most ejector seats don't really concern themselves with preserving the function of an aircraft that's presumably a goner. That plus the seats and what's left of the pilots falling back down onto the plane can't be good for it.

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basaltgranite@reddit

Also: rocket stuck on ceiling while discharging thrust downwards onto the aircraft.

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papagajurernu@reddit

Aluminium doesn't like uneven heat that much...

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Typical-Whereas6761@reddit

Amazing to think how feared the west was of their defence forces…..It is utterly obscene just how actually incompetent not only their equipment was, but the people staffing said equipment.

I recently fell down a YouTube rabbit hole documenting each and every way the soviets equipment was actively trying to kill them, only to realize the people behind said equipment was trying even harder.

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VanillaTortilla@reddit

Which is wild, considering their firearms are some of the most durable and long lasting piece of equipment in existence.

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Dapper_Following685@reddit

You should look into reports of their new AK-12s that they had at the start of the war. Rails couldn't hold zero, warped, and experienced groups ditched from for AK74s and the AK-100 series rifles pretty quick. Supposedly, a couple years into the war, they were fixed, but I doubt anyone with a choice trusts them atp.

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VanillaTortilla@reddit

Sounds like Russian quality control ain't what it used to be lol

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CBT7commander@reddit

It’s really a rarely disproven rule. Even though, for how much I hate the Soviets and their machines, every once in a while they did manage to produce very good systems.

T72, mig31, Soyouz…. They could build good stuff.

But every time it was in spite of the Soviet system and not thanks to it

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jaimi_wanders@reddit

Did you see the Ukrainian aviation channel Paper Skies which has an episode about this very plane and issue?

https://youtu.be/jklGQxAOoo8?si=FUT1r3WwheWCseML

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assface421@reddit

Corruption is a hell of a drug.

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Other-Comfortable-64@reddit

If this is the vid, it is bullsht AI

https://x.com/tweet4Anna_NAFO/status/2000720124949471419

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thenoobtanker@reddit

So they were on the ground, seats go up into the celling with pilots attached to the seats and compacted them onto the walls. Nasty way to go.

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Ok-Parfait-9856@reddit

Damn… when I first read the headline I assumed there was a fire or something, and the ejection seats didn’t activate.

I’ve sat in a cockpit of a fighter jet and I can’t imagine even imagine. That’s a fucked way to go, all the force behind an injection seat smashing your head and neck into mist against the windscreen. I wonder what the dirty details are in this situation. Unfortunately (or fortunately) there is no Admiral Cloudberg in Russia to write up an in depth analysis.

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Tyranno_Grumpus_Rex@reddit

"smashing your head and neck against the windscreen."

The "windscreen" is called the canopy, which is jettisoned upwards as part of the ejection process… supposed to be, anyway. American ejection systems accelerate at 15g, which is incredibly violent. Even successful ejections often result in injuries, with ground ejections being even more violent.

Anyway, the ejection seats are supposed to be disarmed when on the ground. They are only supposed to be armed during the preflight procedure.

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Yosarrian_lives@reddit

They hit the roof of the hardened shelter the plane was parked in. Concrete.

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Tyranno_Grumpus_Rex@reddit

Yeah, I can read and whatnot.

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Yosarrian_lives@reddit

Oh right. It's just cause you bothered to explain the definition of canopy but not point out the obvious flaw in the reply.

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Tyranno_Grumpus_Rex@reddit

I talked only about the canopy because the person I was replying to (which isn't even you) only talked primarily about hitting the canopy. They made no mention of hitting the concrete bunker, which is what the original post was all about.

And my reply was not even snarky, it was just factual. So I'm confused as to why it triggered you so much. Maybe you think I'm picking on them (I wasn't) so you came to save the day? I don't know.

Whatever. Have a nice day. :-)

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InnerBreath2884@reddit

you sound egotistical

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Tyranno_Grumpus_Rex@reddit

Sorry if it appears that way, but I don't think I am, I just try to get to the point with as few words as possible. I don't know, maybe that's why. Judging someone's character based on a few paragraphs on Reddit is not really fair, because the written word always comes across differently than when spoken.

Anyway, I don't know everything. There is always someone who knows more than me. I can admit if I'm wrong and it doesn't affect my ego at all; nobody is always right, all of the time.

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fvpv@reddit

Honestly only for the cleanup crew - for the pilots themselves it would have been so fast they wouldn't even register what had happened.

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Ziegler517@reddit

I dunno. My old man punched out of an A7 in the 80s, said it was slow motion. It took forever in his mind to have the seat ignite, and even longer to go through the canopy. But it likely only took less than half a second.

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Grouchy_Sympathy4272@reddit

The thing is, he punched out - as in, he wanted to escape some danger and had his adrenaline levels through the roof already, which is why he had the slo-mo effect. With these guys it was likely:

- Hey Ivan, check that blinking light

- You mean the ejection seats button? Don't worry, Vasyli, it's always blinking before the lift-off, you just need to punch it like this, look!

WOOOSH, INSTA-SPLAT, ggwp

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Ziegler517@reddit

Very true. He obviously tells the story far better, but the engine seized over the Nevada desert. Tried to relight, no luck. We don’t have a cockpit recording, but he was talking with military ATC for two minutes while trying to troubleshoot before finally telling them he was jumping out. But in max glide, and just comms, it was pretty quiet in the cockpit except for some occasional alarms. He punched out and when he finally opened his eyes watch the aircraft continue the additional 7,000 feet into the ground. He was medically cleared and back in a jet 3 days later. It was a quick investigation in regards to “at fault” determination. But since the engine only had bent fan blades on a single side, they knew it wasn’t spinning when it hit the ground. He says the gun barrels are still buried in the ground some 40-50ft.

The crazy thing more is he got in the next jet 3 days later and said he felt some vibrations that he reported to maintenance upon landing. They told him he was just paranoid after his incident. A fellow JO took that jet up for a training sortie the next day where the jet came apart in flight (pilot survived). But kinda gave him peace that it wasn’t nerves, but actual legit reasoning/feeling, that justified his thoughts.

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thenoobtanker@reddit

Or the pilots that have to fly the plane after if the clean up crew didn’t do a thorough job… unless the act of ejection damages the plane beyond economical repairs.

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Specialist_Reality96@reddit

It is highly unlikely the air frame will ever fly again, the ejection process is pretty violent and at the point of ejection no one is expecting to recover the air frame. Holes burnt in the bottom of the cockpit etc.

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Res_Con@reddit

It's highly unlikely you know what you're talking about. :) Scrap a $40M airframe because a static ejection happened in it?

The airframe (one word, btw) is the structural entity surrounding cockpit - however messed-up the cockpit got during this event - the airframe is fine. There's a bunch of examples of F-14s, F-15s, F-16s, Mirages - being spliced together from partial written-off airframes. Look up "Frankenplane." Additionally, this Russia, which is both not super-book-safety-oriented AND is running out of modern jets just at this point in time.

This plane will certainly be brought back to flying condition.

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Specialist_Reality96@reddit

Every single instrument scorched in a time when there is a massive shortage of parts and skills.

It's far more likely to be pushed into a corner and christmas tree'ed to death (robbed for parts until the air frame is completely nonviable). As that's the easiest thing to do right now as you pointed out it's modern day Russia.

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thenoobtanker@reddit

Figured because deliberate ejection is usually seconds before the plane become a pile of scraps anyway. Then again we have the cornfield bomber that survives an ejection, belly landed without a pilot and then flies for nearly another 20 years.

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Joe2_0@reddit

If a plane is in the air, the exhaust can push down on the plane. On the ground, the plane is held in place by, well, the ground. Seat accelerates a ay at the same rate in either instance, but in the air the exhaust is in contact with the cockpit for less time.

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Specialist_Reality96@reddit

That is likely the exception rather than the rule.

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Informal_Ad_9610@reddit

taken from the annals of "improbable things that could've never happened..until they did"...

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thenoobtanker@reddit

It is, I'm just covering my bum from the "ACTUALLY" people

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Well__shit@reddit

I know the Martin baker pulls about 18g's, pilots tend to blackout during ejection, so good chance they didn't know what was happening.

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Ziegler517@reddit

It’s not sustained G, instant G still keeps you conscious, most of the time. Max verstappen had a 57G impact in f1 back in 2021. Awake the whole time.

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Well__shit@reddit

Emphasis on tend for the initial, it's not a guarantee they blackout. You are right there's a difference, but also Max is built different lol

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onil34@reddit

also huge difference in direction.
fighter pilots experience vertical forces
-> blood goes to the legs and out of the head.
f1 pilots experience side to side loads -> blood

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swift1883@reddit

Moscow Chapel.

Touching God.

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angryspec@reddit

This has happened to aircraft maintainers too, if you don’t respect those seats it will be the last dumb thing you do.

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welguisz@reddit

Nastier than Byford Dolphin?

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Informal_Ad_9610@reddit

blyatsplat.

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26635785548498061384@reddit

Pretty sure this happened many years ago in the UK, killing one of the Red Arrows pilots.

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juanmlm@reddit

Sean Cunningham

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InnerBreath2884@reddit

Ooh, that'll leave a mark.

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Charming-Street-9169@reddit

Hmmm lots of people don't know how an ejection system works...

The initial stage of ejection will be done via explosives contained within something akin to telescopic tubes that expand and push the seat out of the cockpit and away from the airframe.

The rocket motor would then initiate and continue the seats acceleration... This is generally exterior of the cockpit so as to not cook the occupant on the way out.

The cockpit wouldn't anywhere near as roasted as people are making out...

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LouKrazy@reddit

Necessary Paper Skies https://youtu.be/jklGQxAOoo8

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JustaRandoonreddit@reddit

One might say that casualties are through the roof

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joeyjoejums@reddit

"...sustained injuries incompatible with life." That's a new one on me.

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Denbt_Nationale@reddit

sustained injuries described as “incompatible with life.”

splat

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quelin1@reddit

"incompatible with life" is very often a non immediate death but where no treatment can save the injured person. Like being cut in half just above your pelvis, or having all your organs crushed but you remain conscious

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Kirra_Tarren@reddit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incompatible_with_life

Splat indeed.

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Realistic_Kick4960@reddit

Bylat

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BevvyTime@reddit

Splyat

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Realistic_Kick4960@reddit

There we go

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ima_twee@reddit

With this one simple trick, voila! The Moscow Pancake.

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Thick-Act-6924@reddit

🤣🤣🤣 Good riddance to bad rubbish

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CapitanShinyPants@reddit

They're supposed to be 0/0 seats, so did the canopies not blow, or were they not strapped in?

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Far_Dragonfruit_1829@reddit

My father was an expert witness in a lawsuit by a pilot's widow. He was killed following a 0-0 ejection from a USMC A-4. At El Toro, I think.

The seat failed to separate after burnout, so the chute could not deploy. He fell from about 200 feet onto the steps leading to the flight ops office.

It was revealed during discovery that the seat had never been tested at 0-0 in that airframe. The seat holdback straps snapped from contact with the front rim of the cockpit.

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thenoobtanker@reddit

The seats works perfectly. Just that they were in a hangar and the pilot got launched into the celling and “sustained injuries incompatible with life”. I kid you not it is literally the wording used in the Fighter bomber telegram channel that posted this news.

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The_Vat@reddit

It's a common term in emergency response, usually as a guide as to when paramedics are authorised to not proceed with resuscitation. From https://www.ambulance.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/219107/CPG_Resuscitation_General-guidelines.pdf (I use this example as there was a terrible event at Queensland's Dreamworld theme park in the mid 2010s where the phrase was used in news reports...plus I live here):

Where the patient has sustained injuries that are totally incompatible with life such as:

- decapitation;

- cranial and cerebral destruction;

- hemicorporectomy (or similar massive injury);

- incineration;

- fetal maceration

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lockerno177@reddit

Happened to my colleague. We had to sweep the roof with the broom. Another one was working on the cockpit while standing on support trestle. His arm was gone with the seat.

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OceanRacoon@reddit

Your job made you or other staff scrub a colleague's smashed remains off the roof? Wtf?

Do you work for Dr Evil?

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lockerno177@reddit

Not me.. the cleaning staff along with the medical team. It is their job.

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OceanRacoon@reddit

You think they'd hire an outside team that specializes in that rather than make their own staff have to scrape a co-worker off the roof, that's a bit traumatizing even if you don't know them personally, but that's business for you.

Or is corpse clean up in their contracts? How many bodies are they cleaning up!? I now fully believe you work for Dr Evil

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fvpv@reddit

Its mini me

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Dear_Smoke6964@reddit

Well it's a dirty job but...

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Adjutant_Reflex_@reddit

“Injuries incompatible with life” is a phrase we’d use when I still moonlighted as Fire/EMS. We couldn’t declare someone dead…but if they’re missing their head, well…

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Armodeen@reddit

You couldn’t declare someone dead? What kind of EMS system was that? We do it remotely via video over here in the UK these days.

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Adjutant_Reflex_@reddit

I can’t speak for every system but no, as a rank and file EMS provider I couldn’t declare someone dead, only an MD can. Only exception is the “incompatible with life” situation.

An EMS supervisor could remote in with an on-call doctor at the hospital and the doctor could approve cessation of life-saving efforts and declare them dead. But generally our priority was transportation so rarely did we declare someone dead in the field.

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Armodeen@reddit

Fair enough. We have a very developed system over here and are independent of medical control except for exceptional circumstances. Diagnosis of death (as we call it) is bread and butter.

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UglyInThMorning@reddit

I did EMS in NY and ~10 years ago they started to loosen the protocols for field pronouncements quite a bit. It was nice not having to transport stuff that was obviously unworkable.

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Far_Breakfast_5808@reddit

Reminds me of how Luna-25 "ceased to exist" when it crashed into the moon.

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NoWarning789@reddit

Death is quite complex. Look at the procedure to declare someone dead "check pulse, check breathing, apply pain and look for a response", things like that.

We had a history of people being declared dead when they weren't, so this checks are required.

But when the dead person is completely mangled, you can't perform the tests. And writing why gets too gory:

pulse: no, no arms or legs found

breathing: no, no mouth or nose found

That's when you use phrases like "injuries incompatible with life".

In one case I've seen it use for someone still alive and conscious as a way to say "We can't save this person, no matter what you do". I'll save you the gory details.

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Dangerous-Honey7422@reddit

Your last part sounds like one of the situations where a person is intact and unharmed only from the waist up, and the rest is… there isn’t any. They are alive, but doomed.

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A3bilbaNEO@reddit

Basically the "Black Tag Lady" from 9/11

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stewieatb@reddit

Traumatic hemicorporectomy is a thing that you can theoretically survive but it is extremely rare to do so. Most people do not make it to hospital.

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CapitanShinyPants@reddit

That'll do it.

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thecornersking@reddit

Read the article

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CapitanShinyPants@reddit

Skimmed the article, image is stock outside; hopefully you learned something from the other threads it spawned.

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Butteredgoatskin@reddit

Did you see the “inside its shelter” part?

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wendyscombo65@reddit

Probably a SU-24.

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gizcard@reddit

Few war criminals less, what's not to like?

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BraidRuner@reddit

Brutal, got to keep those seats ''Safed'' until clear of the shelter I guess. Condolences to the famiies.

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Usernamenotta@reddit

There is quite a big difference between an Su-24 and an Su-34

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AddlePatedBadger@reddit

10 isn't very big.

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Tyranno_Grumpus_Rex@reddit

my wife disagrees.

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Sea_Warning_9140@reddit

It's 10 more than 0

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AddlePatedBadger@reddit

But it's 11.3 less than 21.3.

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Sea_Warning_9140@reddit

Got an Einstein over here

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FirstGT@reddit

Why don't you just make 10 louder and make 10 be the top number?

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DuckWhatduckSplat@reddit

Because these go up to 11.

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penguin_skull@reddit

Su-24/34 series. Jurnalism 100%.

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KS_Gaming@reddit

F5/F35 series ahh jet

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Blothorn@reddit

If you actually read the article, the original source didn’t specify what it was but a two-seater with ejection seats seats attached to a bomber regiment is likely one of the two.

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rarepepega@reddit

Have some sympathy for the author - he’s from Ukraine and has been working as a journalist for only one year. He’s not interested in such nuances.

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GauAvenger@reddit

All we know is that an aircraft belonging to a bomber regiment had a malfunction and resulted in a pilot and navigator death. The website is only just relaying what is confirmed from the fighterbomber telegram.

Obviously they aren’t looking at a picture and going duhhhhh idk what this is duhhhh su34/su24

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pitaorlaffa@reddit

"According to the Ukraine millitary". I'm all for Ukraine but I'm not sure if it's a reliable source.

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Ok-Air999@reddit

The source ”Fighterbomber” is pro-Russia

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bhtrail@reddit

half of so-called 'pro-russian' telegram bloggers merely hype and scam artists. This one, in particular, already has been caught on multiple cases of spreading dysinformation and inventing news for hype

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CBT7commander@reddit

Yes, but that would put in question his credibility, not his bias, which is what we are discussing here

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bhtrail@reddit

both actually. Some of these milbloggers has been caught on direct reproduction of ukranians SBU news injects, Rybar for example. So, anything that cames from telegram milbloggers should be checked and rechecked with other sources.

both crediblity and bias are in question.

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CBT7commander@reddit

I mean do you have evidence of SBU link?

You can’t just point a possibility, that’s not how this works.

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bhtrail@reddit

this one? no, I don't. But I often saw how fast western media pick up hyped 'news' from so-called 'pro-russian z-bloggers'. One of them is this 'fighterbomber'. Thats why I object that this guy is 'pro-russian'. It claims so, but reality is just another hype artist, that invent news or exaggarate real ones just for hype and advertisement profits.

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ChadUSECoperator@reddit

You should be pro-reading the damn article

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Skylord_ah@reddit

Ukraine is just spectulating on whether is the -34 or -24 the source is earlier in the article

“according to reports from a pro-Russian military blogger affiliated with the Russian Air Forces Fighterbomber on December 8.”

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pitaorlaffa@reddit

I should practice my English reading skills lol

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corvus66a@reddit

The Su24 was the airplane where the navigator’s stick interfered wit th ejection handle while on the ground so the stabilizer has to be held up by strings to prevent unvanted ejection . Maybe they released the strings too early . „su24 ejection seat aileron“ https://share.google/SkMRdXArgLTdACo4H

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aadoqee@reddit

Damn, crazy that the first zero-zero ejection out of an actual plane was from design oversight.

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JSpencer999@reddit

Oh. That's a shame. Never mind eh?

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imav8n@reddit

Injuries incompatible with life…. Paramedics standing around going, “yup”

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Tr0yticus@reddit

Seriously - this seems like Goose but smacking into the hangar ceiling (which in military zones can be concrete bunkers) and then having the jet on the seat keep pushing. I can only imagine how bad this would have looked afterwards.

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MrFickless@reddit

Excellent job 47, now make your way to an exit.

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Ok-Parfait-9856@reddit

Rigging the ejecto seat in the jet to kill the Russian scientist or whatever was one of my favorite Hitman mission options. Half the shit in hitman probably happened in Russia one way or another. Can’t even imagine what the cia and kgb got away with in the ‘50s-‘80s. If Putin wasn’t such a fan defenestration, he’d probably take inspiration from Hitman.

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Jealous_Crazy9143@reddit

feature

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rarepepega@reddit

Author: Vlad Litnarovych

Born in Kyiv, Vlad graduated from National Pedagogical University with MA in political science. Since joining the UNITED24 Media he focuses on highliting various aspects of life in Ukraine under constant Russian attacks.

You can't make this shit up.

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korkythecat333@reddit (OP)

Sounds like pins out, and command eject initiated.