F-4 Phantom Stall & Crash

Video clip of an F-4 Phantom jet fighter going too nose-high on takeoff, stalling, & crashing.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• F-4
• Phantom
• Jet
• Fighter
• Stall
• Crash

[puttefnasken]

is it not able to recover after one of these or any stalls?

[ouroboris]

Not this particular stall. The plane suffered engine failure at a low altitude, and altitude is required to recover from a stall. Read Farong36's comments, he explains it quite well.

[Farong36]

Not sure of the base, but we used this clip as part of our ejection seat training. As I understood it, the aircraft had just come out of maintenance and the crew was performing a Functional Check Flight when they had engine failure. The pilot is zooming for altitude (so he can eject safely). He is not over rotating the nose, he's trying to survive!! The film actually ends with both the uninjured pilot and RIO standing over the remains of one of the ejection seats.

[Farong36]

First: it's slightly slowed down film. Not terribly slow but slow none-the-less (most likely converted 8mm film). The airplane is airborne and the HIGHLY EXPERIENCED pilot is using available energy to initate the zoom even with a dead engine. Ejection seats work better with more altitude, which he gets from the zoom. The plane is already dead, he's using remaining energy to save his crew's life.

[hundvonkrieg]

@nightwriterou812 I don't see how that would be a funny thing. I'm just going off of what they told my API class during a brief. I'm no F-4 vet like you seem to be! I do know the navy jets didn't have a control stick in the back seat, the usaf jets did. So if the control lock wasn't removed before takeoff, this would happen. Same thing happened to a turboprop caribou.

[nightwriterou812]

@hundvonkrieg Control lock in the back seat of a Phantom wasn't removed? That's funny because I flew Phantoms for 14 years and never once saw or even heard of one of those control locks.

[iugey]

Niceee

B)

[hundvonkrieg]

@discofishing yup thats exactly what happened, the control lock in the back seat wasnt removed and the A/C pitched up uncontrollably. same thing happened to an experimental turbine powered carabou

[XxIceCavexX]

Nice fail

[jimmyc451]

@puttefnasken zero airspeed+ zero altitude = crash

[discofishing]

Wow, what a shame! During heavy maintenance inspections do the flight controls have a rig check performed on them? Looks as though flight controls were stuck. The aircraft might have nosed over, but it appears it was pushed back from when the crew ejected.

[batvette]

@canals22 that's kind of funny because anyone who ever got close enough to a Phantom to breathe that smoke (I was PQS'd as an AQ on two versions, a plane captain on one) calls it a stabilator, you access it through the doghouse.

however incidents due to fod left inside panels during maintenance is certainly common with the proliferation of loser "armchair CDI's" in the fleet. AQ1 Max Lines, if you're out there.... you, Buckley and that spool of safety wire... well fuck you. you have no idea.

[batvette]

@Moe145 If this is a production, operational Phantom the stick for the RIO has no influence on flight controls. It's part of the weapons systems. I would know, I rebuilt many microbundle wire harnesses for the rear scopes the RIOs used to beat the shit out of with their boots, me upside down, with the AME's pulling the seats and me spending hours with all my weight on my neck.

Ended up crippled with scoliosis because of it, but hey when you're 18 you think nothing can hurt you.

[bilmez1]

it was very important that pilot pull up so he can gain alt so he can safe ejected last atoms of engine power were put ti rich max alt for safe eject