Definately a beautiful airplane. I'd seen George and his craft at an airshow last year. A very tragic loss.
To investigation topic: The reason I ask about whether or not he had attempted a bailout is due to a few factors. Some of you might remember the Navy QF-4S Phantom from VX-30 that crashed at the NAS Pt Mugu airshow on 20 April 2002. It was filmed as it was coming up initial for the break with another QF-4S and two F-14As in a diamond formation. Just prior to the break to downwind, it suffered a flameout of both engines resulting in loss of flight controls and crashed, killing the pilot and RIO, who successfully ejected at 200AGL, but far too low and out of the ejection envelope.
We were given a safety down-day and one of the topics discussed was this very accident. The gist of the discussion was the idea of remaining with a sick bird rather than taking a nylon letdown, or remaining too long to where a bailout is no longer a survivable option. Factors to consider are location, what's around on the ground where the aircraft may impact, the nature, seriousness, and allowable timeframe of the emergency. In this accident, the crew stayed with the terminally sick aircraft until they were too low to make a safe ejection. And it's not only in the QF-4 accident that this has been seen; it's happened in many military accidents.
Time will tell what the pilot of the MiG was dealing with up there over the skies of New Mexico. I would like to be able to understand why he perished in this accident when, albeit preliminarily, it appears on the surface that he had time to deal with the emergency, and he had the means to egress. Whether or not there was a potential failure of the egress mechanism, whether or not he attempted egress at all, or whether or not he stayed with a terminally sick aircraft over the middle of nowhere while having a means to escape, will all come out in the investigation, and be a learning point for us all.
