Somebody did something really wrong unless the seat malfunctioned somehow.  
Only other seat accident I recall is an iraqi non-pilot who fired a seat while leaning inside the cockpit.

Air Force instructor pilot killed when ejection seat activated on ground


ETA:  At least he had the sequencer in solo.

I read another article that was suggesting there have been issues with this ejection seat.   "Quality Defects"  T-38s affected as well.

There have been multiple "issues" with seat cartridges since forever.  Things like time delay cartridges having a slightly out of spec delay time or test lab failure rates that are higher than allowed.  Either of those will cause all the cartridges from that lot to be replaced.  I've never even heard of anything that could even remotely cause an uncommanded ejection.
That f16 guy was killed a few years ago when a cartridge failed to fire in an f16 - he ejected but the seat separation cartridge didn't fire so he hit the ground still strapped into the seat.  

Seats don't just activate on their own - if there was even the remotest chance of that they would've already grounded the fleet.  99.9999999% chance the handle was activated.  
There were witnesses, the status of the safety pin is visually apparent even after ejection, and the guy died later at the hospital.  They already know what happened, the investigation will be about why it happened and what they can do to prevent it from happening again.

Does the AF assign UPT instructors from any airframe like the navy does?  

There is an "it depends", but in general yes they can come from any MDS.

There are three settings on the ISS mode selector...Solo, where only your handle will operate only your seat, Both, where if one handle is pulled, both seats go (rear first then about 1/3 of a second the front) and then Command Forward where the rear seat operates just itself but the front activates both (usually used for flying around non-pilots in the back seat).  There's zero way the student could have pulled the handle and just had the instructor go.  But, in my 13 years as a T-6 instructor pilot we flew around in Solo only for about 5 years due to concerns that the seat may not fire correctly or sequence correctly in the other modes.  

If I had to speculate, it was an accidental activation. G-suit or other piece of gear caught in the handle with it not pinned.  I know I've forgotten to pin the seat a few times after flights being tired/fatigue, in a hurry, etc.  Hell, I've even dropped the pin while trying to safe the handle.  It happens, even to someone with over a decade of experience.  Certainly can happen to a new guy/FAIP.

In the late 1970’s at Offutt AFB. In the middle of a Sunday night (Monday morning about 3am) a T38 ACE crew chief walked across the Mod-B hangar floor, waved hello to myself and a couple of other T-39 crew chiefs finishing up our pre morning launch tasks.

We thought nothing of it till we heard an explosion and rocket blast a short time later. He had climbed into one of his detachments airplanes and committed suicide buy ejecting himself out of the airplane and into the hangar ceiling. Apparently his wife/girlfriend had left him.

What a waste.

20FW at Shaw had a sequencer fail on a pilot initiated emergency ejection about 4 years ago.  The pilot died.  

Back when I first joined in the 80s an egress troop ejected himself into the hanger roof while doing maintenance on an F4 seat.

Ejection seats fail and will kill you in a heartbeat.  Of all things, the ACES II in the F16 and other 4th gen fighters has the seat indicator on far side of the seat, you have to lean across the seat to check it!

Ops leadership failure to have him flying that night, and mx failure on the overdue seat.

You are absolutely right.  He died before he ever took off that night.  

To add, the EOC never stood up, the response after the FD put the fire out was an absolute shit show with people putting themselves into the response C2, not running checklists and even his wife seeing his body.  I have never seen in my 38 years at this thing such a fiasco.

I had to put together a MARE as part of the CC response to correct the mess it exposed.  I do downed fighter exercises yearly but that year it was COVID and everyone seemed to do so many things wrong.

I think it was my 74 cruise on the Connie we had an F-4 seat go off in the hangar bay.

Nobody was in the seat.  It went up, hit the overhead, spun around a few times then came crashing down to the deck.

A maintenance guy was on the side of the aircraft and was blown off.  I wasn't in that squadron so have no details.


There was a dust up on the local Navy base a few years ago.  Seems the contractors weren't doing the PMs on some FA-18 ejection seats.

Similar incident at George AFB.  A tech was leaning into the cockpit when the seat thruster fired.  The tech was struck and killed.  Put a pretty good bend in an overhead I beam.

Also at George, a German student pilot was taxing for take off.  The drogue gun fired and the slug went through the canopy along with the drogue chute and part of the main chute.  Even with the assistance of Martin Baker it took us over four hours to safely get him out of the cockpit.  It was summer and over 100°F.  The pilot initially forgot all his english.  I sat on the intake for that while time talking to him, first in my poor German and later his excellent english.  Initially we didn't even want to try and open the canopy.  But we did finally get it open and him out.  Heck of a day.