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offer, because sitting in the back is sometimes
boring. I handed over control of the aircraft and,
for a change, I was enjoying myself and all I had
to do was watch the time and fuel. Everything
went according to plan, my colleague in the
fighter role fought like a lion and even did not
allow such an experienced pilot as my instructor
to get the better of him. I watched the fuel
dwindle and we agreed to do one more maneuver
before we headed for home. A couple of vertical
climbs followed to stay out of the sights of
the guy behind with a transition to scissors
(alternating horizontal turns at relatively low
speeds), and my mood was approaching a very
relaxed state. Out of nowhere, there were two
loud metallic bangs coming from the engine bay.
I shifted my view to the instrument panel
to see what was going on. My instructor, who
was famously calm, said nonchalantly into the
intercom: ‘probably the engine’. At the same
moment when the red lights on the panel began
to light up, the radio from the plane behind us
said in an excited voice: ‘You're on fire, your
engine is on fire!’. White smoke and a column of
sparks flowed from the engine's exhaust nozzle.
Although I was not in control at the moment,
I reached for the engine control lever, slid it to
the STOP position, immediately shut off the fuel
supply and pressed the fire extinguisher button,
exactly as we had learned from emergency
procedure drills. It did not help. ‘You're on fire,
you're still on fire,’ number two radioed. Just to
be sure, I pressed the fire extinguishing button
a few more times, even though I knew that the
extinguishing system could only be activated
once. That was the moment I was really scared
like never before and if it wasn't for the instructor
in the back seat, I probably wouldn't have dealt
with anything more and would have punched out
regardless of everything else.
Fortunately, the situation calmed down and
the engine finally stopped burning. We were at
7000 ft, everything on board was working except
the engine, but our landing strip was 30 km away.
‘I won't make it to the field’, said the instructor,
who was still flying the plane, over the intercom,
as if apologizing to me for the situation in which
we found ourselves. ‘Prepare for ejection’ was
his next order. I tightened all the straps that
bound me to the seat and, by extension, to the
parachute. This was followed by a roughly two-
minute phase of relatively calm gliding, during
which we reported an emergency on the correct
frequency, the second aircraft was behind
us the whole time communicating with the
tower. The direction of our flight was a wooded
area northwest of the village of Borohrádek
designated for such situations, however, it soon
became apparent that we would not be able to
make it that far either. ‘So get ready...NOW, get
out of here’. I straightened up in the seat, put
my head in the headrest, squeezed the catapult
handles with both hands, clenched all my
muscles and pulled on the handles…
It took about a second to be out of the airplane.
I remember how the canopy blew away and
the rush of warm air when the seat started to
move. Everything worked correctly and I was
parachuting somewhere between a field and
a meadow. Meanwhile, my instructor remained in
the cockpit, having to rebalance the aircraft as
a relatively large amount of mass disappeared
from the front after my ejection. My exit from the
plane took place at a height of approximately 1000
meters above the ground, while the instructor
pilot ejected at approximately 300 meters, only
after he made sure that the impact of the plane
on the ground would be in an uninhabited area.
We both escaped relatively unscathed. The
pilot of the second plane also enjoyed a great
workload, not only shadowing us the whole time
and communicating with the tower, but after the
plane hit the ground, he recorded its position for
the benefit of the subsequent rescue operation.
At the same time, he had to fight not only with
obvious stress, but also with a lack of fuel.
Fortunately, after circling the crash site a few
times to make sure we were alive, he returned to
base and landed safely.
My decent with the parachute was definitely
not a textbook event, and while trying to control
the parachute, I began to bounce around like
crazy and I hit the ground like a sack of rice.
Immediately after landing, I turned on my phone
and called my wife and the base that I was okay.
I spread the orange canopy of the parachute over
the ground so that it was clearly visible from the
air. It didn't take long for a pair of JAS-39 Gripen
aircraft from the NATINAMDS standby system to
fly over the crash site. A few minutes later I saw
first the yellow air ambulance helicopter and
then the blue police helicopter. They landed at
the crash site, which was about two kilometers
away from me, and then headed in my direction.
They landed in a meadow a hundred meters
from my position. In addition to the rescuers, my
instructor also welcomed me into the helicopter.
He was in a good mood as always. We shook
hands with obvious relief and it dawned on me
that despite all the bad luck, it actually turned
out really well.
The bottom line of the accident was one
destroyed aircraft and minor material damage to
the forest cover, but no one was injured, which
is probably why I can remember this event with
a smile on my face. After all, it was an important
experience and it did not affect my love for flying
in a negative way.
L-39 0440 in the care of ground personnel of the CLV at Pardubice.
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May 2024