There’s no difference. The end result is the same. Food. If the species is a carnivore or an omnivore, some have to die for others to live. It’s called Nature.

If we are letting nature take it’s course then we should abolish Zoo’s, abolish all conservation efforts to save animals and allow them to die out.
Man is the tip of the natural selection tree. For us to kill or cause the extinction of animals is inevitable.
I’m not sure it will make the earth a better place?

I seem to remember an incident with a Harrier where the pilot departed but left the seat in the aircraft?
Was in an old copy of `Aircraft` magazine. The aircraft was flying on autopilot with no occupant. I don’t know if any reason was found.
I believe jets were scrambled to intercept but the plane eventually crashed.
That’s kind of off topic but interesting none the less.

Many thanks for the replies so far. Foreign bodies and unsecured seats fall into the `not a seat failure` category although the GR5 incident is a possible candidate.

The Argentinian crew during the Falklands must have died of exposure. They ejected from a Canberra (can’t remember if shot down by Harrier or Sea Cat?) and landed in the sea. A rescue helicopter was sent to find them but chased off by Harriers. They were never rescued.

So you could possibly exclude it from this discussion. Maintenance error (caused by the manufacturer), not necessarily the fault of the seat.

You mean apart from the very recent and sadly fatal Red Arrows incident? I’d consider a scissor shackle failure a seat failure, over-tightened bolt or not.

I didn’t mention that incident as I wasn’t sure if it was considered a seat failure.
Didn’t MB say they were happy with the investigation of the seat? I read that as the seat wasn’t at fault.

I’m not knocking MB or ejection seats in general. Every mechanical device has a failure rate. Better to have some form of escape than none at all.

This thread is more to do with reading about escapes in general. The recent Meteor thread and also a Phantom low level ejection (airshow) in the USA.
Both outside the parameters and sadly fatal.

Apart from these types of escape I’ve not found any incident that was determined to be a seat fault.