Red Arrows seat mechanism 'useless'

Written By Unknown on Rabu, 29 Januari 2014 | 19.21

29 January 2014 Last updated at 07:08 ET

A coroner has described part of an ejection seat that threw a Red Arrows pilot to his death as "entirely useless".

Flt Lt Sean Cunningham was killed at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire after being accidentally ejected from his Hawk T1.

The inquest has heard that he was ejected because of a problem with the ejection seat firing handle.

Coroner Stuart Fisher has begun to give his findings into the death.

The 35-year-old pilot, who was born in South Africa and grew up in Coventry, died on 8 November 2011.

The inquest has heard that the ejection seat firing handle had been left in an unsafe position which meant it could accidentally activate the seat.

Testing of the Mk.10 Martin-Baker seat showed that the safety pin could be inserted even when the seat was in this unsafe position, giving the impression the seat was safe.

Mr Fisher said the safety pin mechanism was "entirely useless".

'Failure of communication'

Seven RAF personnel had 19 opportunities to check the ejection seat firing handle, but did not notice it was in the unsafe position.

Mr Fisher said the "repeated failure to notice this" could only be due to the check "not being done at all or not done sufficiently carefully by each individual".

Flt Lt Cunningham's parachute should have saved his life, but the main chute failed to deploy because a nut and bolt had been fastened too tightly, the inquest heard.

Mr Fisher said none of the engineers who worked on the parachute mechanism can be criticised.

Martin-Baker knew the parachute mechanism could jam if the nut and bolt were too tight as early as January 1990, the inquest was told.

However, this was not widely known within the RAF and Mr Fisher said Martin-Baker was guilty of a "very serious failure of communication" over the dangers of its product.


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