Stefan Kaarle

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Jan Stefan Kaarle, born 25 February 1970, is an officer and a display pilot in the Swedish Air Force.

1 Gripen crash
2 External links
3 See also
4 References

[edit] Gripen crash

Kaarle flies the Gripen, a fighter aircraft manufactured by Saab. On 19 April 2007, he was involuntarily ejected out of his aircraft in mid-air while approaching the landing strip at Vidsel airfield in northern Sweden.^[1] The aircraft crashed in the forest along the landing strip, but Kaarle landed safely by parachute.

SHK's investigation confirmed initial suspicions that the ejection seat handle − placed between the pilot's thighs − had been activated by the motions of Kaarle's flight suit. Repeated jerks on the handle, resulting from the G-suit inflating and deflating during the flight, had ultimately exerted enough force on it to cause an uncommanded ejection. Moments before the ejection, Kaarle had taken the aircraft into a tight turn, thus causing the G-suit to activate.

For the C and D models of Gripen, the ejection seat handle had been moved and redesigned to make room for larger cockpit displays. The investigation showed that the new handle was prone to these kinds of uncommanded ejections. A survey among the airwings that fly the Gripen revealed that the handle on other Gripens had become dislodged before, though not far enough to cause an ejection. The investigation concluded that the quality assurance procedures between the Swedish Defence Material Administration, the Swedish Air Force and Saab were not adequate to discover the error in time and were therefore cited as the main reason for the accident.^[2]