I can actually sympathise with the poor sod who did this to an extent.
As a very young Abel Seaman serving on 724Sqn one particular arvo I had to carry out a pre-flight on an A-4 that just had a buddy tank fitted up and the armourers were finishing inspecting the store, hose and basket. I had asked them about any special things to watch out for and did they mind me going ahead with the pre-flight, they said "no" and "no problems".
No problems were encountered during the initial full walk around check/inspection or a "power off" cockpit check ensuring switch positions etc.
So before turning on power to do the last bit of the pre-flight, I asked the "bombheads" if it was ok to switch on, the Petty Officer answered "yes" and so I threw the power switch . . "bang!!!!"
and yes we all sprinted in different directions
What had fired was the guillotine to cut the fuel hose from the buddy store in case of an in-flight emergency, and it cut most of the way through the swaged metal fitting at the base of the refuelling basket as the "bombheads" had almost manually (
a bit fuzzy here too???) fully retracted the hose and drogue basket.
I had not noticed that some "other" hangar pilot had played with the switches in the buddy store control panel (recently fitted in place of the cockpit radar display) and had actually depressed the "fire" button under it's guard (
not sure if there was a guard, memories a bit fuzzy there
), so when ok'ed to power on much to all our shock the guillo fired