The U.S. Air Force has identified the instructor pilot who died Monday after his ejection seat activated on the ground at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls.
The USAF said Capt. John Robertson, an instructor pilot with the 80th Operations Support Squadron, was seriously injured when “the ejection seat of the T-6A Texan II aircraft activated during ground operations.”
Robertson died of his injuries Tuesday, the air base said in a statement.
This is a devastating loss to Captain Robertson’s family and loved ones and the entire 80th Flying Training Wing. Captain Robertson was a highly valued airman and instructor pilot. Our deepest condolences go out to all who knew and loved him.
Colonel Mitchell J. Kok, Acting Wing Commander
Cocke also thanked the team that responded to the incident, whose efforts to provide first aid and medical care allowed Robertson’s family to be with him at the time of his death.
“We are grateful to the M1 maintenance team who immediately provided life-sustaining care, and to the heroic efforts of the security forces, firefighters and medical personnel here at the base and at the Joint Regional Hospital,” Kok said.
family photo
The training aircraft can be flown by one or two pilots. An Air Force official said one student on board the plane did not eject and was not injured.
The Air Force has not said how the ejection seat might have been activated, but said an interim safety board investigation is investigating the incident and a full Air Force safety investigation board is expected to be formed later this week.
Aviation lawyer John Kettles said, “Ejection is a violent process.” “There is a potential for injury in the ejection but it should be nothing more than minor.”
Kettles said the 2022 incident at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth is an example of what seat ejection should look like. He instructs the pilot to eject to a height that allows the parachute to fully fill and then return to the ground.
Kettles said it was highly unlikely that the eject lever was pulled intentionally or accidentally.
“As someone who has flown a plane with an ejection seat, of course you want it to be able to work when you need it, but frankly if I were flying one of these now Had I, I would have been more worried right now about the ejection seat taking me out just on a regular flight, even when I didn’t want to,” Kettles said.
Sheppard AFB said the Board of Inquiry will issue its report on the incident once the investigation is complete.
Funeral arrangements for Robertson, who is from Fort Worth, are pending.
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T-6A Texan II Trainer
The T-6A Texan II is a single-engine turboprop, two-seat aircraft that serves as the primary trainer in basic flying skills for Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps pilots.
According to the Air Force’s dossier on the aircraft, pilots enter the T-6A cockpit through a side-opening, one-piece canopy.
In a training flight, an instructor may sit in the front or rear seat; Both seats have lightweight Martin-Baker ejection seats that are activated by a handle on the seat.
US Air Force/Airman Zoe T. Perkins
Trouble with ejection seats
Ejecting from an aircraft is a multi-stage emergency evacuation sequence designed to be triggered by the pilot holding a handle. Grabbing the handle first causes the aircraft’s canopy to break or shatter before the cartridge is fired and pulls the pilot’s seat away from the aircraft so they can parachute to safety.
The entire ejection process takes only a few seconds from the moment the handle is activated.
In 2022, the T-6 fleet and hundreds of other Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps jets were grounded after inspection revealed a possible malfunction with a component of the ejection seat’s cartridge activated devices, or CAD. The fleet was inspected and in some cases, the CAD was replaced.
Ejection seats have been credited with saving pilots’ lives, but they have also failed at critical moments in plane crashes. Investigators identified ejection seat failure as a partial cause of the 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, after their plane caught fire, they discovered that one of the four ejection seats was indicating failure. Instead of bailing out, all crew members decided to stay in the burning plane and land it so they all had the best chance of survival. All crew members survived.
