plawolf
Lieutenant General
Even the most catastrophic engine failures would not kill all momentum and control instantly.
If you loose your engine at low altitude, it's usually better to use your momentum to climb, trading airspeed for altitude before ejecting, where the slower speed and higher alt will give you a far greater survival rate. That also gives you a chance to try to restart your engine, although the better survival rates would be the primary reason for such a move.
Instant ejection is usually only warranted if you loose all control or hope of control. But even then it will take a few seconds for pilots to reach that final decision to eject after frantically going through emergency procedures.
All the while that is happening, the pilots should declaring an emergency, while will mean everyone else back way off immediately.
That's pretty much how pilots are trained to deal with all emergencies.
1) declare an emergency
2) assess the situation (while telling ground control)
3) make a decision (while telling ground control)
Only during the most sudden and extreme circumstances would steps 1-3 be compressed to within a few seconds. And I really cannot think of any engine rated issues that would force the pilots to make such a near instant decision to eject.
Of all the emergency scenarios I can think of, the only one that would force the pilots to make an ejection choice so quickly is an collision at low altitude.
