Leonard Dunlap, P.M., sent this cockpit video of attempted restart and ejection from F-16.

“I thought you might find it interesting to see a crash from the cockpit of an airplane. Pretty interesting; it is an instructor pilot in the rear and a student in the front seat of an F-16.

A "Bird Strike," as seen through the Heads Up Display (HUD). You can see the bird flash by just prior to impacting the engine. You can hear the aircraft voice warning system telling them they have a problem and referring to the "D-6 NL" which means there is no engine RPM. They made 2 attempts to re-light the jet engine, but evidently there was too much damage from the bird strike and they had to get out.

These guys were very cool; note the heavy breathing... they certainly flew longer than one would expect before ejecting. Airspeed can be observed on the HUD's upper left corner. It goes down to the low 120's as they struggle to get the engine going again, but as the plane noses over and dives to earth it increases to at least 175 just before impact.

It just goes to show how quickly your day can go to pieces - 45 seconds from strike to ejection.

All and all, not bad. They ran the emergency checklist, made two re-light attempts, and picked out a plowed field for impact before ejecting. You can follow the audio attached to it and hear the conversation between the pilot and instructor pilot and then the tower including the pilot saying they were punching out. The tower didn't seem to completely understand it all, and missed the significance of the last transmission. His last radio call, he's talking to an empty aircraft.

The video continues until impact, even after they both eject. A classic "buying the farm" as you can see the plow rows get bigger. A real nice job from the aircrew by keeping their cool and turning the aircraft away from populated areas.

No one hurt and no one killed but the dirty bird did cost the Taxpayers a "few" million dollars!”