L39 Down, with Fatality.

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tobnpr

Pre-takeoff checklist
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tobnpr

Transiting to Oshkosh.
Juan stated it was the pax which was killed, this article says it was the pilot (?).
Hot seats, possible failure of one of them.

www.mykxlg.com

Jet Leaves Watertown, Engine Failure Leads to Fatal L-39C Albatros Crash in Granite Falls

{KXLG - Granite Falls, MN} An Aero Vodochody L-39C Albatros jet, which departed from Watertown Airport, crashed near Granite Falls Municipal Airport (KGDB) yesterday, Monday, July 21, 2025, resulting in
www.mykxlg.com www.mykxlg.com
 
Turns out, same guy who commanded the ejection on the Mig-23. Most mil folks don't get a single ejection in their career, this guy is up to one per year average right now. Remind me not to get in line at the drive thru behind him lol.

Unfortunately, the back seater (the passenger) either did not pull, or the seat did not work as advertised. Given the preliminary information about how they found the body, yeah, brings me back to our fatality in '17. NTSB should be able to quickly determine if he tried to pull, given they're not sequenced. If the passenger was uninitiated to hot seat ops, it's not a an uncommon scenario for the individual to panic and not want to pull. It's also a lot of pressure for the front seater, as it would be somewhat of a moral responsibility to wait for the backseater to punch first. In a non-sequenced seat that's also not zero-zero, the front seater could be faced with running out of envelope and have to give up on the back seater and eject while knowing the backseater is going to die.

Hot seats in civilian hands is a higher risk proposition, given the economic impositions of recurring seat maintenance without a full suite of governmental [military] support. Not impossible, just raises some risks. The L-39 seats (if original) are not great. Def the type that will wreck your back almost by default, compared to the more back-friendly catapult multi-stage setups in service. No idea if this L-39 was running the original rig, or an aftermarket retrofit.
 
News link said pilot died and passenger survived with serious injuries, that's backwards from the video? Who's right?
 
The California man died, Ruff (the Mig 23 ejection guy) is alive. Perhaps the deceased was also the one flying, I assumed Ruff was being (yet again), the hired seeing eye dog. So perhaps there's some semantics at play, I have no idea if the deceased was a pilot in his own right or not. Given we know the deceased was in the backseat, and that's the seat that was found strapped to him, it's not a far reach to consider ruff "the pilot" and the deceased the "passenger".

Occupants of crashed jet identified

GRANITE FALLS — A California man was killed and a Texas man was injured when a jet aircraft crashed near Granite Falls on Monday afternoon, the Yellow Medicine County Sheriff’s Office said. The incident is under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation...
www.marshallindependent.com
 
Surprisingly with all the fuel they were carrying according to Juan there was no fire.
What would the chances for a dead stick landing?
 
not good, but it's technically possible in the L-39. Not all jets can be dead-sticked (T-38 for instance). In fairness, I wouldn't want to dead-stick a Lancair IV or Glass 3 either, and neither have hot seats. I'd be cool if they had BRS though, which is technically possible in EAB land.
 
I'm questioning the pilot's ADM.
"I'm gonna dead stick this in IMC to a runway I can't see in a jet that glides like ballistic missle"

I wonder if the pilot was more concerned about saving the jet than life and limb.
 
This is one of those warbirds that you can buy for the same money as a late-model Bo, but costs four figures per hour in fuel and maintenance. At least, if you do the maintenance. And as JB says, the original engines are essentially "wear items", to be replaced periodically.
 
tobnpr said:
I'm questioning the pilot's ADM.
"I'm gonna dead stick this in IMC to a runway I can't see in a jet that glides like ballistic missle"

I wonder if the pilot was more concerned about saving the jet than life and limb.
Click to expand...

I saw somebody else describe those ejection seats as 0/0, zero chance and zero hope.

It wouldn’t be hard to make the case to me that crew didn’t have 100% faith in them for a variety of reasons. If that was the case, you would be pretty motivated to try it and put it on the ground.

Should they have been able to dump those fuel pods?
 
hindsight2020 said:
The L-39 seats (if original) are not great. Def the type that will wreck your back almost by default, compared to the more back-friendly catapult multi-stage setups in service. No idea if this L-39 was running the original rig, or an aftermarket retrofit.
Click to expand...
Based one the article Ruff was standing along a road, sounds like he really lucked out.
 
tobnpr said:
Good question...for the surviving pilot.

According to this, they are indeed drop tanks (unless modified for some reason?).


AERO L-39 and L-139 ALBATROS

Aero Albatros - two seat advanced trainer and light strike aircraft - technical data, photo and other information.
janes.migavia.com janes.migavia.com
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No idea but I bet the FAA makes them non dropping. They’re not military planes in the FAA eyes. They are experimental
 
tobnpr said:
I'm questioning the pilot's ADM.
"I'm gonna dead stick this in IMC to a runway I can't see in a jet that glides like ballistic missle"

I wonder if the pilot was more concerned about saving the jet than life and limb.
Click to expand...
It glided like any jet not a missle. He circled near the airport. He might have mismanaged airspeed or not known L/D max for his config. He was anticipating not being in IMC at a reasonable point to continue dead stick or turn to an open area and punch out. It looks like he was successful in putting them in an open area to punch out after failing to navigate a proper high and low key. We don't know what magenta stuff he had in that bird.
 
Chute partially deployed for the deceased.
 
hindsight2020 said:
Turns out, same guy who commanded the ejection on the Mig-23. Most mil folks don't get a single ejection in their career, this guy is up to one per year average right now. Remind me not to get in line at the drive thru behind him lol.
Click to expand...
Especially if he's driving an Aston Martin with multiple sets of license plates.
 
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