MiG-23 down in Michigan!

[Lee White]

MiG went down during airshow, 2 people safely ejected and no damage/casualties on the ground. 

 

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2023/08/13/fighter-jet-crash-ypsilanti-willow-run-thunder-over-michigan-air-show/70585564007/

Edited August 14, 2023 by Lee White

[John1]

Best money that guy ever spent was to keep the ejection seats functional.   Say what you want about Russian jets but their seats are pretty damned good.   Glad no one on the ground was hurt.  

[Juggernut]

From the above linked article:  The pilot, listed as Dan Filer....  I wonder if that guy is Pete's buddy?

Edited August 14, 2023 by Juggernut
Changed tense from was to is.

[Zola25]

10 minutes ago, Juggernut said:

From the above linked article:  The pilot, listed as Dan Filer....  I wonder if that guy was Pete's buddy?

There are a few commments at the end of this thread..: (Please note that the headline has nothing to do with the MiG-23 crash. Both pilots are reported to be ok.

 

https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/97647-eaa-fatalities/

 

[alaninaustria]

Glad to hear the two pilots are okay. I do believe that the owner/pilot is Pete’s friend. 

Some good decision making going on in that sequence!

Sad for the loss of the aircraft. 

Cheers

Alan

[John1]

 

 

Edited August 17, 2023 by John1

[Pete Fleischmann]

Both Chris ( @Dope737)  and I know Dan very well. Chris is also tight with the backseater- My wife also knows Dan very well.

I text with Dan about every day. They are good. Very grateful that everything went as well as it did.

 

It takes me two hands to count the number of bros who have ejected from military jets. Half of them didn’t survive. Again-we are all very grateful.

 

Namaste

P

[alaninaustria]

5 hours ago, Pete Fleischmann said:

Both Chris ( @Dope737)  and I know Dan very well. Chris is also tight with the backseater- My wife also knows Dan very well.

I text with Dan about every day. They are good. Very grateful that everything went as well as it did.

 

It takes me two hands to count the number of bros who have ejected from military jets. Half of them didn’t survive. Again-we are all very grateful.

 

Namaste

P

Am glad to hear they are both okay Pete… man, what an ordeal. Any news on what happened, was it an engine failure or hydraulic failure… just really curious what could have happened to have caused this jet to go down. 

Cheers

Alan

[LSP_Ron]

I thought this was an interesting interview

 

 

[LSP_Matt]

That was very interesting.  I feel inertia in the vehicles I drive or ride.  It's often surprised me how seemingly over-confident a few family members or friends are driving vehicles with lots of inertia but at speed.  Where I can feel that 'vector' he's speaking about they seem oblivious to it.  It's super disconcerting.

I don't know if it's just my imagination but that plane looked like it was going forwards but still falling out of the sky at a phenomenal rate.  So glad they're OK and no one else was hurt.

Dan seems the luckiest of all.  It seems like that seat was right at its minimums.  He barely seemed to have a swing under a full canopy.

 

Matty

[Oldbaldguy]

Anybody know if the backseater was some kind of MiG-23 expert?  Don’t think the host ever gave the guy’s bona fides.  Pretty sure he had no vested interest in the airplane.

[John1]

Didn't have time to watch a 50 min video but I thought I read somewhere that a prelim report was released.   It said that the jet suffered a partial loss of power and while the pilot was trying to troubleshoot the issue, the backseater felt that things had passed the point of no-return and ejected both of them from the aircraft.   

[Lee White]

4 hours ago, Oldbaldguy said:

Anybody know if the backseater was some kind of MiG-23 expert?  Don’t think the host ever gave the guy’s bona fides.  Pretty sure he had no vested interest in the airplane.

According to Juan Brown (Blancolirio on YT) the back seater was a rated MiG-23 pilot with a single seater of his own. Brown suggested that the pilot got distracted running a checklist to get the engine re-lit and might have been unaware of how close to the edge of the envelope they were. The fact that the PIC barely got a swing under his chute tells this Armchair "expert" that maybe the GIB is owed a beer or 3.

[Oldbaldguy]

4 hours ago, Lee White said:

According to Juan Brown (Blancolirio on YT) the back seater was a rated MiG-23 pilot with a single seater of his own. Brown suggested that the pilot got distracted running a checklist to get the engine re-lit and might have been unaware of how close to the edge of the envelope they were. The fact that the PIC barely got a swing under his chute tells this Armchair "expert" that maybe the GIB is owed a beer or 3.

I was stunned to Learn that a Mig-23 needs 14,000’ to make a successful deadstick landing from essentially a midfield downwind position.  By way of contrast, my Cessna 182 needs only a thousand feet - less in a pinch.  Tweren’t no way that thing was going to make the airport from where they were whether they were in it or not.  To butcher the line from Top Gun a bit, it’s better to save your ass in a bad situation and come back to fly another day than to ride the thing into the ground.  They both ought to buy the FAA a beer of three for letting them have hot seats.

[John1]

Very interesting podcast on this accident.   The two guests being interviewed are both high-time MiG-23 pilots who flew these jets under the USAF's Constant Peg program.   Fascinating to hear their opinions on highly complex jets like the MiG-23 being maintained and flown by private individuals, the FAA process for vetting pilots of these jets, the decisions made by the pilot of the MiG, etc.   

 

They do their best to be diplomatic but their opinions on all of the subjects above are pretty clear.

 

Worth checking out.  On a related note, IMHO, this podcast (10 Percent True - Tales from the Cockpit) is the best Mil Av podcast on the web, bar none.