Most of us have probably heard about how ejecting from a military aircraft is dangerous in and of itself, and that ejection is not a get out of jail free card.
The most common dangers seem to be:
- Lacerations during the ejection, by failing to clear the cockpit.
- Concussions caused by collisions with the canopy or fuselage.
- Insufficient altitude or speed to deploy a parachute before impacting terrain.
- Other assorted hazards associated with parachuting down in an unprepared location.
There exist a number of openly-available reports on the topic, from several different countries and time periods that could serve as a starting point.
I have multiple closely-related questions, so I hope it will be self-evident why I chose not to split them up, but feel free to focus only on the first one:
- What are the odds of surviving an ejection from a military aircraft? We can presuppose a fit crew member, but make no further assumptions about the particular case.
- How likely is the crew member to sustain injuries?
- Are there any significant trends in the data, e.g. introduction of 0-0 seats, survival procedures, sub- vs. supersonic ejection?