Don't bother denying it: your most secret desire is to one day be engaged in the largest air battle of all time, probably against aliens, and then right as the bad guys are about to shoot you down, bam, you eject right out of that explosion, flipping them the bird on your way out!
So it would be super embarrassing if instead you ejected... while still on the ground. That would be very bad and dumb. Whoopsie.
Well, some poor sod had a very bad day on August 12, during a backseat ride-along in an F-15D
Eagle, Aero Time reports. This was at Barnes Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, home to the 104th Fighter Wing. This was apparently meant to be a so-called incentive flight, in which a member a non-pilot member of the wing was allowed a chance to be flown in a fighter jet.
This person sure did fly! Just not in the way they expected. While still taxiing on the runway, they managed to trigger their ejection seat, blowing off the canopy and then blasting up into the sky. Thankfully, the F-15's ejection system is rated for zero-zero, meaning it can safely eject even if the plane is at zero altitude, zero speed. In this case, that resulted in zero injuries, so nothing was wounded but dignity.
Read more: These Are The Cars You Love Getting As Ubers And Lyfts
Getting Out Of An F-15, Quickly And Vertically
An F-15 backseater from Barnes Ops tested its zero/zero ejection seat today (zero elevation and airspeed). It appears successful, but someone has some explaining to do. pic.twitter.com/QJxed8DhP1
— Dale Stark (@DaleStarkA10) August 13, 2025
Obviously, nobody is supposed to undergo premature ejection. While this backseater wasn't a pilot, anyone who gets in a fighter jet is given a thorough briefing, so they should have known better than to pull the "don't pull me unless you have to" handle. Worse, ejection seats are only supposed to be armed under certain conditions, so there may have been some procedural steps that were missed. The 104th halted all flight operations for 36 hours after the incident, probably to make sure nobody else was about to yeet themselves out of a plane, and an investigation has been launched (just like the seat).
Whoever it was went on quite a ride. Once the handle is pulled, the canopy is blown off, the limb restraints are tightened, and your chair becomes a rocket ship, all in the space of a second or two. Then the parachute deploys and a separation motor shoves the seat away from you, so you can land unhindered. Why these are not installed in corporate meeting rooms remains unknown.
For what it's worth, the seat itself is loaded up with survival gear, so the downed aviator can go over and retrieve them after landing. In this case, though, this was not a rugged hero trapped behind enemy lines. This was a landlubber who literally fell on their own base. I don't think they needed the life raft this time.
Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox...
Read the original article on Jalopnik.
