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A U.S. Air Force crew had only seconds to react after their F-15E Strike Eagle was hit by enemy fire over Iran Friday. Both airmen ejected.
The escape from the aircraft — triggered in an instant — set off a high-risk rescue mission deep inside hostile territory, as U.S. forces raced to recover the crew before Iranian forces could reach them.
In those few seconds, the ejection seat transforms from a last-resort safety system into an explosive escape mechanism — launching the crew out of the aircraft and into open air before a parachute deploys.
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That is the sequence the pilot and weapon systems officer aboard the F-15E over Iran would have experienced after their aircraft was struck Friday, forcing them to eject and triggering a high-risk rescue operation over the weekend. The incident — and the successful recovery of both airmen in recent days — offers a rare look at what happens in the split second a pilot ejects, and the extreme forces they endure to survive.
“It’s a violent event,” Pete “Gunz” Gersten, a former F-16 pilot who flew special operations missions, told Fox News Digital.
An F-15E Strike Eagle takes off for a combat flight in support of Operation Epic Fury during the Iran war at an undisclosed location on March 16, 2026. (U.S. Air Force/Reuters)
The moment a pilot pulls the ejection handle, the sequence begins almost instantly.
The canopy disappears in a fraction of a second. The seat rockets upward, forcing the body through intense acceleration.
When a pilot pulls the ejection handle, they are subjected to forces ranging from 14G to 20G (14 times to 20 times the force of gravity), according to military experts. For a 200-pound airman, this means their body feels as if it suddenly weighs 4,000 pounds.
“You’re no longer a decision-maker,” Gersten said, describing what happens to pilots who…
