This F-16 pilot passed out in a hard turn, and his own jet saved his life. At about 8.3 g, he was pressed into his seat with more than eight times his weight. The turn pushed his blood away from his brain faster than his heart could pump it back, and he blacked out (G-LOC). With nobody flying, the F-16 dove at the ground in full afterburner, reaching 652 knots (750 mph). Its Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System (Auto GCAS) knows where the jet is and carries a map of the terrain. It keeps comparing the pull-up it could fly right now with that map. At the last moment that still works, it takes over: it rolls the jet upright and pulls up. The student pilot came around during the recovery. Auto GCAS entered service on U.S. Air Force F-16s in 2014; by 2021 the Air Force Research Laboratory credited it with saving 11 pilots.
The cockpit view is the declassified head-up display video of an Arizona Air National Guard F-16, May 5, 2016. The F-16D banking over the desert in the second shot is the Auto GCAS test jet of NASA and the U.S. Air Force, not the jet from the incident.
Sources: Aviation Week, “Auto-GCAS Saves Unconscious F-16 Pilot: Declassified USAF Footage” (Guy Norris, Sept. 13, 2016); Edwards AFB, 412th Test Wing, “Keeping the warfighter safe” (Nov. 19, 2012); NASA NTRS 20070023632, Swihart and Skoog, “Automatic Collision Avoidance Technology (ACAT)” (2007), AFRL, “Congressional report commends AFRL for life-saving collision avoidance technology” (July 1, 2021); FAA, “Acceleration in Aviation: G-Force”; FAA Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, chapter 5.
Footage (public domain): declassified HUD video, U.S. Air Force, via NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center ( F-16D Auto GCAS test flights, 2010, NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center (
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The HUD shows up to 9.1 g during the recovery, but the computer only asks for about 5 g. The extra came when the student woke up and pulled back on the stick himself (Aviation Week, 2016). It does not need to know the pilot is out: it only steps in at the last moment a pull-up still clears the ground, so it stays out of the way during normal low flying (Edwards AFB, 2012).