F-14 Ejector Seat fatality circa 1987

In George Hall's "Top Gun", the author refers to a fatal mishap
involving aviators deplaning from an F-14 that had just landed when
the ejector seats suddenly went off. According to Hall, both pilots
were killed, but he had no explanation for why the seats fired. I'm
guessing that they were improperly safed. Does anybody know about
this incident? Hall's book appeared around 1987, and I think he
mentioned the incident occurring on the carrier Enterprise.

In George Hall's "Top Gun", the author refers to a fatal mishap
involving aviators deplaning from an F-14 that had just landed when
the ejector seats suddenly went off. According to Hall, both pilots
were killed, but he had no explanation for why the seats fired. I'm
guessing that they were improperly safed. Does anybody know about
this incident? Hall's book appeared around 1987, and I think he
mentioned the incident occurring on the carrier Enterprise.


That was the fly on for our deployment. I was in the pattern (case 3) in an A6
when it happened. I seem to recall that they had safed their seats but had all
sorts of personel gear in the CP they were trying to get some of it out when it
got hungup on something on the seat. They pulled really hard and fired the
seat with out pulling the handel. I think the RIO was sitting on his seat
unstarpped and the pilot was on the boarding lader leaning over the seat so he
took the seat in the face. Not pretty at all and tragic waste.
Sparky