Originally Posted by Zebra

I used to work on F-15's and was always in the cockpit. We were trained from day 1 to make sure that the safety pins were in the handles for the ejector seat. Supposedly if you eject while on the ground you don't go high enough for the chute to slow your descent and you would most likely be killed. Looks like that guy barely was high enough for his chute to open, and landing in water certainly helped.