Although confirmed details are thin, it is probable that during an aerobatic manoeuvre, the passenger tried to steady himself by grabbing the black and yellow striped handle between his legs.
And that's when the ride really began.
The ejection sequence started with the firing of the three cartridges in the Martin Baker-built seat. The seat lifted about 45cm off the floor and this activated the two rockets.
Passenger and seat smashed through the Perspex canopy of the Pilatus PC-7 Mk II and, pulling about 20G, was 100ft out of the aircraft in two seconds flat.
Re: [Erroll] BANG! And passenger was gone
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About 10 years ago an aerobatic pilot in the US was starting some some inverted maneuver with a passenger in his Yak-52 (or similar).
There was a crashing noise and the plane got windy. Pilot turns around to see a hole in the canopy and no passenger. The passenger did get his parachute open and was OK. Might have been a rated pilot.
I don't know the exact story, but it was something like a seatbelt release system that the passenger snagged with his sleeve.
Re: [Erroll] BANG! And passenger was gone
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When I was growning up in Jacksonville, Fla., there were severel aircraft carriers stationed at Mayport Naval Station. On almost every cruise, there was a story of some maintenance crewman ejecting himself into the overhead of the hanger deck. Don't know if it was the same story retold but if it was it was retold a lot.
Jet passenger tells of fall from 3,000ft: Ejector-seat malfunctioned during victory roll.
5 April 1994.
A MAN walked out of hospital yesterday 24 hours after he was catapulted from an aircraft at 3,000ft.
Des Moloney, 28, was upside down during a 240mph victory roll when the ejector seat in his brother's Provost jet trainer malfunctioned and threw him out of the aircraft. Then his parachute failed to open fully.
Despite landing heavily on a verge outside a Sainsbury's store in Colchester, Essex, he sustained only minor injuries.
Before leaving hospital yesterday, Mr Moloney, wearing a neck brace, said: 'I knew I was in big trouble because I was not in the aeroplane, which was a bit of a shock.'
He added: 'There was a kind of jolt. I felt the ejection seat move through the canopy. I was in the seat for a few seconds then I was away from the seat and I was free falling.
'I thought to myself, 'I don't want to really deal with this'. I reached for the ripcord and pulled it. The parachute opened. That was good. It was then I actually got my bearings. I could see the ground, I could see cars.
'Unfortunately the bottom strap of the harness of the parachute came unattached and the harness increasingly pushed up and it was quite scary as I couldn't breath after a while. The last 20 seconds I couldn't breath at all. I hit the ground quite well - no problems there - then a 14-year-old boy came over and asked me for my parachute.'
Mr Moloney, who had never made a parachute landing before, now plans to celebrate with 'an Easter egg and a few beers'. His brother, Tom, 31, who was at the controls of the two-seater when the accident happened, circled for several minutes to try to spot his brother.
He said: 'Flying around in the air space with a huge hole; my brother's gone, the seat's gone, everything's gone.' He landed the jet 20 miles away at North Weald airport after putting out an emergency call.
He said: 'I had honestly thought I was never going to see him again . . . when I found out that he was alive, I just couldn't believe it.'
He said that when the brothers, both from Chobham in Surrey, were reunited, 'we kissed each other like real men and cried.
