[FA-18C]

Man, that is scary. Hard to question whether he should have stayed with the aircraft. Unknown what caused the abrupt nose pitch forward and crunched the nose gear, or why the engines are still at high RPM. When ShLt hits the fan, figuring out what is happening is not always instantly obvious. If there was an indication of fire, or smoke and flames, you get out. Hard to argue there is a worse way to go other than dipped in honey and staked to a fire ant hole. Also, if there was a sense the aircraft was going to roll over, you gotta get out, or get trapped and see above...Very lucky that he was still inside a safe eject envelope. Looks like maybe a swing and a half before impact, would be fortunate to have minor injuries. Hard to watch these happen. Never a huge fan of fighter aircraft taking off and landing vertically. Is it cool? Absolutely, but the thrust to do this and to control it puts incredible stresses on components. And if something goes, it is never uneventful. Of the people I know that have ejected from aircraft, I count 4 from Tomcats, 2 from A-7s, 4 from FA-18s and a friend in Harriers laps me in numbers he is aware of - successful, or not.