Typhoon Birdstrike - Canopy Ejected

[48k]

Sharing some terrific photos from the Coningsby spotters group of the Typhoon which landed yesterday without a canopy after a birdstrike. Pilot landed safely and is OK (though I assume he may need a change of trousers).

[Dbag101]

Is that a result of a strike to the canopy, or was it an engine strike, and the ejection sequence failed? It would never surprise me if it was a technical on the ejection sequence. The amount of times I’ve heard that a QRA has gone tits, because the ‘computer says no’ when the pilot is trying to get going, and they’ve had to wait for a tech to ‘power cycle’ the flight computers, is comical. I’m not a huge fan of the Typhoons.

[Eric Mc]

What's your experience onm these aircraft?

Surely if it was an engine failure, the aircraft wouldn't have landed normally - which seems to be the case?

[phil squares]

Here is just a little more info on the incident.

https://theaviationist.com/2025/01/23/raf-typhoon-...

[AlexIT]

I hope it wasn't raining

[Dbag101]

For the sake of the pilot, I hope he / she didn’t try to eject, have the process fail, then get the aircraft home successfully. They will have some questions to answer if they did, I suspect . I’d love to be a fly on the wall of that meeting.

Edited by Dbag101 on Friday 24th January 14:09

[Scotty2]

Could it not be that the bird had "uncommanded disassembly" on the front of the canopy effectively blinding or severely reducing visibility?

I'd have thought some instrument landing or such would be available?

If you can't see where you are going...

[Austin Prefect]

I did see a suggestion that fumes in the cockpit might be a cause for going cabriolet but not necessarily ejecting.

[Dbag101]

Austin Prefect said:

I did see a suggestion that fumes in the cockpit might be a cause for going cabriolet but not necessarily ejecting.

The life support system should have been able to cope with a bit of stinky smoke. Opening the sunroof was a bit drastic.

[LotusOmega375D]

Scotty2 said:

Could it not be that the bird had "uncommanded disassembly" on the front of the canopy effectively blinding or severely reducing visibility?

I'd have thought some instrument landing or such would be available?

If you can't see where you are going...

Well the windscreen is still there, so that theory can’t be correct.

[IanH755]

FastJetPerformance on YouTube (ex-tornado GR4 and Hawk T2 instructor pilot) who has lots of contacts still in the military Inc within the Typhoon fleet is suggesting that it "could" be a mistaken action by the pilot who, when they started to feel hypoxic, moved the incorrect lever and accidentally jettisoned the canopy instead of activating the seats emergency oxy supply, he also kind of ignores the RAF's birdstrike claim too.

Be interesting to see how close this is to reality once the incident report goes Live.

[FourWheelDrift]

IanH755 said:

FastJetPerformance on YouTube (ex-tornado GR4 and Hawk T2 instructor pilot) who has lots of contacts still in the military Inc within the Typhoon fleet is suggesting that it "could" be a mistaken action by the pilot who, when they started to feel hypoxic, moved the incorrect lever and accidentally jettisoned the canopy instead of activating the seats emergency oxy supply, he also kind of ignores the RAF's birdstrike claim too.

Be interesting to see how close this is to reality once the incident report goes Live.

[Tony1963]

IanH755 said:

FastJetPerformance on YouTube (ex-tornado GR4 and Hawk T2 instructor pilot) who has lots of contacts still in the military Inc within the Typhoon fleet is suggesting that it "could" be a mistaken action by the pilot who, when they started to feel hypoxic, moved the incorrect lever and accidentally jettisoned the canopy instead of activating the seats emergency oxy supply, he also kind of ignores the RAF's birdstrike claim too.

Be interesting to see how close this is to reality once the incident report goes Live.

I’d be very surprised if that is what happened. Levers, switches etc are usually designed and positioned so any potential confusion is minimised. After the Lowestoft Harrier incident, this has been upmost in the cockpit designer’s mind. Add to that the very thorough training that the pilot will have gone through, it sounds unlikely.

But, hopefully, the truth will come out.

[normalbloke]

Tony1963 said:

IanH755 said:

FastJetPerformance on YouTube (ex-tornado GR4 and Hawk T2 instructor pilot) who has lots of contacts still in the military Inc within the Typhoon fleet is suggesting that it "could" be a mistaken action by the pilot who, when they started to feel hypoxic, moved the incorrect lever and accidentally jettisoned the canopy instead of activating the seats emergency oxy supply, he also kind of ignores the RAF's birdstrike claim too.

Be interesting to see how close this is to reality once the incident report goes Live.

I’d be very surprised if that is what happened. Levers, switches etc are usually designed and positioned so any potential confusion is minimised. After the Lowestoft Harrier incident, this has been upmost in the cockpit designer’s mind. Add to that the very thorough training that the pilot will have gone through, it sounds unlikely.

But, hopefully, the truth will come out.

Yet it still can and does happen.

[zsdom]

IanH755 said:

FastJetPerformance on YouTube (ex-tornado GR4 and Hawk T2 instructor pilot) who has lots of contacts still in the military Inc within the Typhoon fleet is suggesting that it "could" be a mistaken action by the pilot who, when they started to feel hypoxic, moved the incorrect lever and accidentally jettisoned the canopy instead of activating the seats emergency oxy supply, he also kind of ignores the RAF's birdstrike claim too.

Be interesting to see how close this is to reality once the incident report goes Live.

Sounds like someone wants some clicks on his videos

Edit, just looked at the video title & it’s a typical clickbait bullst title, embarrassing

Edited by zsdom on Saturday 25th January 12:52

[IanH755]

Tony1963 said:

I’d be very surprised if that is what happened. Levers, switches etc are usually designed and positioned so any potential confusion is minimised. After the Lowestoft Harrier incident, this has been upmost in the cockpit designer’s mind. Add to that the very thorough training that the pilot will have gone through, it sounds unlikely.

But, hopefully, the truth will come out.

Usually I'd absolutely agree, but the situation he discussed was regarding what he believes to be a hypoxic pilot and therefore what should be a simple operation in everyday conditions, might become more difficult under hypoxia.

Again, I'll agree with you that the incident report will eventually tell the whole story.

Edited by IanH755 on Saturday 25th January 13:17

[MB140]

IanH755 said:

FastJetPerformance on YouTube (ex-tornado GR4 and Hawk T2 instructor pilot) who has lots of contacts still in the military Inc within the Typhoon fleet is suggesting that it "could" be a mistaken action by the pilot who, when they started to feel hypoxic, moved the incorrect lever and accidentally jettisoned the canopy instead of activating the seats emergency oxy supply, he also kind of ignores the RAF's birdstrike claim too.

Be interesting to see how close this is to reality once the incident report goes Live.

I did hypoxia training at RAFCAM (RAF Center of Aviation Medicine) about 6 years ago.

They do a rapid decompression at 25,000 ft, you have about 10 seconds of useful consciousness at 30,000 ft which is the altitude the aircraft was reported being at at the time.

FJP seems to think that during a hypoxia event the pilot might have got confused and pull the manual canopy jettison instead of the emergency oxygen handle (which switches the pilots oxygen supply from aircraft oxygen to a backup independent bottle of oxygen on the seat).


I can tell you at 25,000 ft knowing I was in a hypoxia environment in a chamber and expecting to be hypoxic I can understand how quickly your mental capacity diminishes.

[MB140]

normalbloke said:

Tony1963 said:

IanH755 said:

FastJetPerformance on YouTube (ex-tornado GR4 and Hawk T2 instructor pilot) who has lots of contacts still in the military Inc within the Typhoon fleet is suggesting that it "could" be a mistaken action by the pilot who, when they started to feel hypoxic, moved the incorrect lever and accidentally jettisoned the canopy instead of activating the seats emergency oxy supply, he also kind of ignores the RAF's birdstrike claim too.

Be interesting to see how close this is to reality once the incident report goes Live.

I’d be very surprised if that is what happened. Levers, switches etc are usually designed and positioned so any potential confusion is minimised. After the Lowestoft Harrier incident, this has been upmost in the cockpit designer’s mind. Add to that the very thorough training that the pilot will have gone through, it sounds unlikely.

But, hopefully, the truth will come out.

Yet it still can and does happen.

Typhoon cockpit design is what 20 year old design. Tornado had a similar stupid idea with parking brake and emergency blow down bottle. Two identical levers. Parking brake by the left knee, blow down bottle by the right knee.

Many a time when sat in a cockpit I would have to double and triple check. It was not unheard of for new line guys to set off the blow down bottle.

As posted earlier one can see if hypoxic it would be easy to get the wrong handle.

[borcy]

Hypoxia is a strange it can catch up with people really realising it's happening.

Easy enough to get confused over what was previously a simple task.

The usaf went through a series of hypoxia events a few years back.

[MB140]

borcy said:

Hypoxia is a strange it can catch up with people really realising it's happening.

Easy enough to get confused over what was previously a simple task.

The usaf went through a series of hypoxia events a few years back.

That’s why all RAF aircrew go through hypoxia training in the chamber and then every 5 years a recurrence is done using a oxygen mask with reduced oxygen levels to simulate hypoxia and then put in the sim to fly to give you an understanding of what it feels like and what your individual symptoms are.

It is a silent killer (unless it’s a rapid decompression, which is blatantly obvious), with hypoxia you effectively become happy and joyful, feel warm, hot flush and then you might get pins and needles, they were my symptoms at least.

A slow decompression is actually very difficult to feel coming on.