[close04]

> the report said its standby flight display and backup communication system “remained basically functional.”

Just to be clear, the pilot had the backup instruments available and functional, and the plane could be substantially controlled (i.e. could be pointed in the pilot's desired direction).

People are using feelings rather than facts to judge this pilot. So they do it differently then they would for example a police or SWAT team member shooting the wrong person under pressure. The same actions would have been judged very differently if chance hadn't kept that plane from crashing into a populated area.

[the5avage]

He didn't kill someone. He bailed out of a malfunctioning plane with little time to decide.

If his plane went towards the ground with mach 1 at 1900 feet impact would occur in 1.5 seconds.

[close04]

> He didn't kill someone.

The pilot left that to chance and chance made it that nobody was killed. At the very least you can recognize this was a failure of the pilot especially when the plane was realistically flyable, and backup instruments were available, in line with his training. In line with that overly broad definition of "uncontrolled flight" he ignored the backup instruments and punched out before attempting alternatives.

> a malfunctioning plane

The report called the aircraft flyable. The manual being overly broad on what's an "out-of-controlled flight" means he was not derelict in his duties but ejecting from a flyable aircraft (and leaving it to crash at the whims of randomness) was a mistake.

> If his plane went towards the ground with mach 1 at 1900 feet impact would occur in 1.5 seconds

But it wasn't, he wasn't in the middle of the crash, some instruments malfunctioned, the backups were working (they're there to be used in case the primary fails or else the designers would have bothered to put backups). The plane flew another 64 miles which took substantially more than 1.5s.

The "well technically" argument works less as the stakes go higher, and even less when dealing with a squadron commander. The plane flew, the instruments worked, and the pilots are trained for this. The report recognizes this.