Posted by po 3/31/2025
From my memory at the time, I was initially fully on the side of the pilot, but after reading through the discussion, I wasn't really sure anymore.
He didn't try to see if his flight controls (pitch, yaw, roll) were still responding, he didn't make use of the backup instruments, he didn't try the backup radio, and he had enough fuel to land elsewhere. The letter of the procedures may have said that he was in an out-of-control flight condition, but the procedures were too vague, and he should have had the experience to second-guess them and ascertain if his plane was actually out of control.
Sure, maybe all those things wouldn't have worked, and he would have had to eject. Or worse, they wouldn't have worked, and he would have spent enough time trying them that it would have been too late and he would have died.
But for better or worse, the actual outcome does matter: the plane was still flyable, and either a) he would have likely been able to successfully land, possibly at an alternate location with better weather, or b) he would have had the time and flight stability to try a bunch more options before deciding to eject.
I do find the circumstances strange, in how long it took for Marine brass to decide to relieve him of his command and torpedo his career. But I have no frame of reference for or experience around this, so perhaps it's not unusual. If he were just a rank-and-file pilot, he likely would have kept his position and continued on, perhaps with a bit of a bumpy road ahead. But he was given the command of an important group, a group tasked to refine flight procedures around this plane, and that comes with different expectations for his actions in the scenario he was in.
If the article is correct, the issue started when he was 750 feet above the ground depending at 800 feet per minute. He decided to eject approximately 30 seconds layer, at an approximate above ground height of 350 feet. Presuming he decided to continue troubleshooting, he was going to impact the ground in 25 seconds, and the ejection seat does take a few seconds for the pilot to clear the fuselage (and any explosions at impact).
This is a tragic situation to be in. He was under an immense time pressure to make a decision and from his understanding, the plane was out-of-control. He also doesn't know for sure if his rate of decent has accelerated, so he might have been dozens of feet above the ground.
I understand the armchair flying with perfect understanding and time to think it through means that he should have tried more stuff, but in the seat? I would have ejected. I think the majority of folks would have.
> Observe, orient: Jet still in the clouds, about 750 feet above ground, still in his control, descending glide path, about 800 feet per minute
Then brokenness again
> About 30 seconds had passed.
By then he might have been gliding halfway towards terrain.
> He felt the nose of the aircraft tilt upward. He felt a falling sensation.
Subtext is that this feels like stalling with only a few hundred feet and a few seconds left. There's no room to recover control surface.
There's only so much you can read in so little time with fallback instruments. Airspeed means squat, climb rate can be unreliable.
> Forty-one seconds.
Next loop is going to be either nothing happened or ground contact. What to you do.
Context is I remember reading comment that F35 manual calls for ejection if out of control flight under 6000ft agl. If pilot was at 750ft, it reinforces how little time/margin pilot had to make call and that he probably did everything he can until last minute.
The "Command report" is available here.[1] But at the point that relevant flight data recorder data ought to appear, it's censored. Power faults and crashes of one of the redundant flight computers are mentioned. No full timeline. The report mentions that the transition to conventional flight mode did happen after the pilot punched out. But there are no technical details as to whether it was slower than normal.
Not enough info to form an opinion.
[1] https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/61/Docs/FOIA/F-35%20Mis...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life
But in this situation it sounds like the plane was highly likely to crash anyway so the estimated value you would save by potentially sacrificing him is low. Also I think the calculation is probably quite different in this situation compared to e.g. paying for safety measures in advance.
It was obviously possible to get the plane into a climb, because that’s how it ended up after he ejected. Once you are there is time to think and plan. Bad visibility doesn’t stretch infinity in the upward direction.
If you still have a working attitude indicator you can trust, you obviously shouldn’t eject, but it sounds like he wasn’t sure if he could still rely on that. You don’t feel the direction the plane is going without instruments.
Do you understand this failure occurred at less than a thousand feet AGL?
And that is how they normalize their atrocities.
I hear America is looking for efficiency and reduced gvt spendings, I'd say the F35 program is a good candidate to start, especially since now many countries aren't so fond of the whole "send all of your military data to our best friends the US of A".
I'd take a bicycle without electronics over an electric vehicle that decides not to start, any day, when picking military hardware.
F-35s has a much lower crash rate than F-16s during their first 20 years in service [2] and just recently passed 1 million flight hours [3]. The program has its problems, but it resulted in an incredibly capable fighter plane. Practically every US ally that has access to the F-35 run their evaluations and concluded that the F-35 is the best option (eg [4], quote: "F-35A offers highest overall benefit at lowest cost by far").
[1]: https://www.gao.gov/blog/f-35-will-now-exceed-2-trillion-mil...
[2]: https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/are-new-fighter-jets-more...
[3]: https://theaviationist.com/2025/03/04/f-35-one-million-fligh...
[4]: https://www.admin.ch/gov/en/start/documentation/media-releas...
Article mention 1/10 critical failure rate (injuries or worse). I wonder how much of a push is made in this direction?
Given (implied in article) sentiment I wouldn’t be very surprised if stakeholders wouldn’t want ejection to be too safe.
Will this mean you accidentally fire some great pilots? Yes. But given the cost of these airplanes it is better to spend some more money on training a few more pilots.
Better to follow protocol and eject. The link is a story where a good pilot followed protocol but still got screwed over.
The plane in this incident was valued at $136M USD.
He was in reality about 1900 feet AGL at the time of ejection. Planes fall around 160 feet per second when stalled.
How much money would you accept to not pull an ejection lever for a few more seconds in a zero-visibility setting without instruments in a falling/stalling plane that you personally are sitting inside? How about at 1900 feet AGL? That’s 12 seconds before impact on a good day.
The materials and labor for a single plane are far lower.
It’s similar to why search and rescue don’t bill you after they’re called - they don’t want to add a reason to hesitate and make your problems worse.
Maybe, maybe not. But I do expect that if another pilot finds himself in Del Pizzo's situation, they're going to do a more thorough survey of the plane's capabilities before ejecting. Maybe that's the outcome the Marines is looking for, even if it puts their pilots at risk more often.
You don’t know what you are talking about.
Don't throw good money after bad.
For your loved ones it is infinite.
But for a government with X funds and Y lives to save, there has to be a price.
If someone ejects on every little problem, you spend billions more on that and billions less on some other life saving initiatives.
Putting aside the bad ejection survival stats.