McCain “Wet Started” his F-4 to haze the newbie behind him. The flare caused a Zuni rocket on that Phantom jet to launch. Hitting McCain’s F-4. Hot dogging started the chain reaction.In the words of Iceman from Top Gun. McCain was dangerous. McCain was the only pilot immediately transferred off the Forrestal. “Wet Starting” was banned after this incident.
Not supporting or backing McCain but I read McCains aircrafts tail pipe was pointed over the side not at the AC behind him.All accounts seem to reflect that fact along with an APU being disconnected and after the switch over to onboard power there was an electrical malfunction causing the rocket to fire.
Please. Just stop this crap. It makes us look bad, and is factually incorrect.
If you google Forrestal 1967 fire, it is very interesting reading. I have had the benefits of serving from 1975 to 1981 active and actually met people who were there that day. Reality is always a little less spectacular than sea stories.
Massgopguy, please don’t take this personally because I do not intend it that way, but nearly every single thing in your post is erroneous or flat out wrong. I am bringing it to your attention, because having read your posts in the past, you don’t seem like the kind of person who would intentionally spread something so egregiously wrong. And I know you didn’t write the piece, either, so I thought you might like to know.
First, a “wet start” is not something you would ever do intentionally around other people, and most especially, not on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier in a combat situation with ordinance all over the place. Is it possible that some numb nuts would intentionally do a wet start while turning up the aircraft for maintenance on land base where there’s no one else around? Sure… I’m pretty sure that happened on occasion. But there are specific instructions and procedures to avoid wet starts for very, very good reasons. A wet start happens when the igniter fails to light the fuel being injected into the canisters, and clouds of fuel come out the tailpipe. It can be an extremely dangerous situation if it then ignites, which can happen. But when someone starting a jet aircraft, they pay specific and particular attention to the exhaust gas temperature, and if it does not light off in a reasonable time and the temperature starts rising, the engine start is generally aborted. I say with complete confidence that no naval aviator would ever, ever do this on a flight deck that is crowded with fully armed aircraft. If it does happen, damn well better be an accident.
Secondly, McCain was flying an A-4 Skyhawk, which is a single engine, single pilot attack aircraft. There is no way that he could’ve done anything to “startle the newbie” behind him. They did have a training version of the A-4 with two seats, but those were only in training squadrons, of which VA-46 was not one. We cannot even give the author of that piece of crap article the benefit of the doubt and assume he was talking about a newbie pilot in a plane behind him, because his tailpipe was pointed over the side of the deck, hence nobody behind him.
“Hot dogging” did not cause the chain reaction. It was a stray spark caused by the removal of the arming pin on the Zuni rockets installed on LCDR Bangert’s F-4 to save time during a high tempo launch cycle, and was an APPROVED workaround. And this pin had been removed on the F-4 Phantom on the other side of the deck.
When the missile launched from the Phantom, it streaked across the deck, severed the arm at the shoulder of a flight deck crewman, hit another plane a glancing blow, and went right through the external fuel tank on McCain’s Skyhawk, which emptied its 2000 lbs of jet fuel onto the flight deck, where something ignited it.
McCain only escaped with his life because instead of sitting in his cockpit and burning to death like a few other pilots did, he opened his canopy, unstrapped himself, climbed out on his refueling probe and dropped to the deck right into flaming fuel where he suffered significant burns but was helped out of the flames by someone.
If he was the only aviator transferred, could it be because of the burn injuries and shell fragments, and perhaps they sent him ashore for treatment? I ask that rhetorically, because I don’t know. It has never interested me to find that out.
Lastly, wet starting was never “banned”. One never did it intentionally in the first place, unless you were a bunch of 18 year old sailors turning the plane for maintenance at some shore base like Cecil Field, and were far from prying eyes. I was high-power qualified, and know that I never, EVER saw anyone do it intentionally, though I have seen it done by accident.
Again, please don’t take this personally, but if we want people to pay attention to us, we need to be factual.