quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

It seems to me that the backseater pulled the handle too soon...

I too was thinking that way until I saw the latest video from Juan Brown. The back seater was a former military pilot/current airline pilot in training to fly the MiG 23.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP8M3WRj7F8

In the video, Juan says they ejected at 300 - three hundred - feet, later on the manual shows a minimum recommended ejection altitude of 6500 feet. There's much more detail in the 18-minute video.

We've got some experienced pilots here who can watch the video and comment.

That video does a good job explaining it, including why the rear seat guy did it.
They were way below when they should have ejected and somewhat lucky things worked out. Including that no one on the ground was hurt, that was just pure luck.

The crew wasn't able to protect people on the ground, regardless of whether they were still in the plane.