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Emergency Over North Sea: Cockpit Recording Of Aircrew Ejecting From An F-4D Phantom

Last updated: December 12, 2012 7:28 PM

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Ejection caught on tape.

The cockpit audio you can find below in the form of video with transcript was recorded in 1975, during a flight that ended with the ejection of a pilot and a WSO (Weapon System Officer) out of a U.S. Air Force F-4D Phantom, about 80 miles off the coast of England. It was uploaded to Youtube with some background photo by the son of the pilot who says: “Both my dad and his navigator were rescued […]”

The recording starts with “TREST 11” a flight of three Phantom jet performing air-to-air training before (at 04:00 min) one of the F-4s suffers a compressor stall.

Hear the rest of the adventure unfold.

Although the pilot of the doomed fighter jet gives bearing, range and distance to RAF Bentwaters, “Trest” was a standard radio callsign of the 48th FW, based at RAF Lakenheath.

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By David Cenciotti

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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.