Namibian Air Force incident

[ian16th]

It seem like the locals are trying to keep this one under wraps, but African Pilot heard about it:

Air force pilots critically injured

Two pilots of the Namibian Airforce were admitted to a Windhoek hospital in critical condition after the ejection seats of their jet aircraft were activated during take-off at the Karibib Air Force Base last Thursday. The incident has been confirmed by the Minister of Defence and Veterans Affairs, Frans Kapofi but official details about it have not been forthcoming from either the Namibian Defence Force (NDF) or the Namibian Police.

It has since come to light that Chinese Aircraft Accident Investigators from the People’s Liberation Army will be dispatched to Namibia to determine what caused the accidental activation of the ejection seats of the Karakorum-8 jet aircraft moments after take-off. From civilian aviation circles, it is understood that the rocket-powered ejection seats shot the two crew members out of the air force jet at such a low altitude that the parachutes did not have enough time to deploy before the pilots struck the ground. It is understood that the two pilots each sustained various broken bones and that one of them has been comatose ever since the unfortunate incident.

It is not the first time that the Namibian Air Force has remained tight-lipped about an aircraft accident. At the end of November of 2013 when Flight TM 470 of Mozambique Airlines crashed in the Bwabwata National Park in north eastern Namibia several officers and soldiers were injured when an Antonov aircraft of the Namibian Airforce crashed upon landing at an airstrip near the crash site. The aircraft had been dispatched to assist with the clean-up operation at the crash site of the Embraer SA 190 aircraft as well as the retrieval of the bodies. At the time, aircraft accident investigators determined that the airline pilot deliberately crashed the Embraer jet into the ground. The crash claimed the lives of 34 passengers and crew.

[Ex-Ascot]

No expert on ejection seats but I thought that with rocket powered ones you could bang out at ground level?

[ian16th]

No expert on ejection seats but I thought that with rocket powered ones you could bang out at ground level?

These are Chinese, not MB, so I do believe that all bets are off.

[TheGreenGoblin]

The Zimbabwean air force took the biscuit, without the biltong, back in the day with this debacle in Chinese aircraft when attempting to do a flypast at Laurent Kabila's funeral! While the article mentions Shenyang F6's, I believe that at least one aircraft might have been a Chengdu F7.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, April 24 -- The assassination two months ago of Congolese President Laurent Kabila was a great blow to the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe.

Kabila had been very accomodating to Zimbabwean commercial interests in the former Zaire in return for the support of Harare's 14,000 troops. His son and successor, Joseph Kabila, seems far more open to influence from Washington and the way has opened up for a possible end to the Congo's endless war, which would see the retreat of Zimbabwean and other foreign troops and might well threaten those commercial interests.

But it now emerges that Kabila's death was also a military disaster for Mugabe, who announced that the Zimbabwean Air Force would provide the fly past at Kabila's funeral. Five Shenyang F-6s (ie. the Chinese version of the Soviet MiG 21) were to be provided and there was an instant scramble by senior ZAF officers to perform the prestige duty and make potentially valuable contacts with the new Kabila regime before it settled in. Unfortunately, while most such officers are technically licensed to fly the F-6, few of them are still flying routine missions and their pilot skills are thus a little rusty.

The F-6 is a very fast aircraft of short endurance and thus has a very limited range. The flight from Gweru to Kinshasa required no less than five hops for each aircraft, so an Antonov tanker aircraft had to fly with them for continual refuelling at one airstrip after another. Because the Antonov is a slow and lumbering aircraft -- and because the F-6 has a very slow refuelling turnaround time -- this meant a very slow progress across Central Africa, with the last leg having to be made in the dark. One of the pilots -- a wing commander, without recent night-flying experience -- became disorientated and ejected from his aircraft, which crashed and was written off. (Amazingly, he was found alive in the jungle by Zimbabwean troops five days later.)

The remaining four F-6s performed the fly past and then had to head back to Zimbabwe. On an early leg at Lumumbashi airfield the first two F-6s landed successfully but the third, piloted by a group captain, misjudged his landing and ploughed his plane into the ground, writing it off. This left the fourth F-6 circling the airfield. He was told to divert to an alternative airstrip 30 minutes away, but informed ground control that he had only 20 minutes more fuel and would have to try to land on the Lumumbashi airfield, though the last 300 metres of it were now strewn with wreckage and was also wet. He got down but skidded off the strip and ploughed into a tree. Thus while all three officers survived, three F-6s were written off.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/2001/04/24 ... 988084800/

The Namibians also fly the F7...

[Ex-Ascot]

The Zimbabwean air force took the biscuit, without the biltong, back in the day with this debacle in Chinese aircraft when attempting to do a flypast at Laurent Kabila's funeral! While the article mentions Chengdu F6's, I believe that at least one aircraft might have been an F7.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, April 24 -- The assassination two months ago of Congolese President Laurent Kabila was a great blow to the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe.

Kabila had been very accomodating to Zimbabwean commercial interests in the former Zaire in return for the support of Harare's 14,000 troops. His son and successor, Joseph Kabila, seems far more open to influence from Washington and the way has opened up for a possible end to the Congo's endless war, which would see the retreat of Zimbabwean and other foreign troops and might well threaten those commercial interests.

But it now emerges that Kabila's death was also a military disaster for Mugabe, who announced that the Zimbabwean Air Force would provide the fly past at Kabila's funeral. Five Shenyang F-6s (ie. the Chinese version of the Soviet MiG 21) were to be provided and there was an instant scramble by senior ZAF officers to perform the prestige duty and make potentially valuable contacts with the new Kabila regime before it settled in. Unfortunately, while most such officers are technically licensed to fly the F-6, few of them are still flying routine missions and their pilot skills are thus a little rusty.

The F-6 is a very fast aircraft of short endurance and thus has a very limited range. The flight from Gweru to Kinshasa required no less than five hops for each aircraft, so an Antonov tanker aircraft had to fly with them for continual refuelling at one airstrip after another. Because the Antonov is a slow and lumbering aircraft -- and because the F-6 has a very slow refuelling turnaround time -- this meant a very slow progress across Central Africa, with the last leg having to be made in the dark. One of the pilots -- a wing commander, without recent night-flying experience -- became disorientated and ejected from his aircraft, which crashed and was written off. (Amazingly, he was found alive in the jungle by Zimbabwean troops five days later.)

The remaining four F-6s performed the fly past and then had to head back to Zimbabwe. On an early leg at Lumumbashi airfield the first two F-6s landed successfully but the third, piloted by a group captain, misjudged his landing and ploughed his plane into the ground, writing it off. This left the fourth F-6 circling the airfield. He was told to divert to an alternative airstrip 30 minutes away, but informed ground control that he had only 20 minutes more fuel and would have to try to land on the Lumumbashi airfield, though the last 300 metres of it were now strewn with wreckage and was also wet. He got down but skidded off the strip and ploughed into a tree. Thus while all three officers survived, three F-6s were written off.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/2001/04/24 ... 988084800/

The Namibians also fly the F7...


ChengduF7.jpg

That should be on the Only in Africa thread

[TheGreenGoblin]

I have just checked, and my memory served my correctly, twas the Squadron Leader who snaffled, and then crashed, the Chengdu F7. His hapless colleagues flew the Shenyang F6's.