Lousy flying, but an incredible save!

An Iranian Air Force Sukhoi Su-24 strike aircraft, similar to that shown below, crashed last week.




According to the Iranian Press TV:

A fighter jet belonging to Iran's Air Force has crashed at Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport after reporting a technical hitch.

The Russian-build Sukhoi Su-24 crashed around 7:00 pm local time (3:30 pm GMT), Fars news agency reported.

The fighter's pilot and co-pilot are unharmed as they ejected themselves from the plane in time, the report added.

The video clip below shows the accident. It's really extraordinary. First, the pilot (who's clearly very inexperienced) makes a horrible attempt at a landing, and has to go around again. The second time, he hits the runway very hard. The plane bounces up and down, porpoising down the runway until it hits hard enough to collapse the landing gear, and bursts into flames as it slides along the runway on its belly. After a few moments of footage from inside a crash truck, the crash is shown again, in slow motion. It's worth waiting for.

The amazing thing is, the pilot and weapons officer were able to eject several seconds after the explosion. Their ejection seats performed well enough, even under such harrowing conditions, to throw them clear of the flames and smoke, to make a safe descent. Kudos to the Russian designers and manufacturers of the ejection seats - and I hope the pilot, at least, went straight to the mosque, to give thanks to Allah for looking after dumb fliers like him! The weapons officer, of course, might instead have given thanks that he survived his pilot's attempt to kill him!

Now that's what I call a near-death experience!

Peter