U.S. Searching for Overboard Sailor

We lost three guys over the side while running an elevator during Hurricane Hugo. For some crazy reason they were running missiles from the flight deck to the hangar bay during a hurricane.

We had to launch the alert helicopter in the worst weather that one could imagine for flying a helicopter. Furthermore, the communication and ASE equipment on the H3 helicopter is located right below the pilot and copilot side windows and these windows leak very badly because they were designed to knock out easily for emergency egress. Because of the water, the electronic equipment didn't work which meant that the pilot had to manually hover the helicopter while one of the SAR swimmers was lowered into the sea.

Also the inner-communications weren't working so another crewman had to continually run between the pilot and the hoist operator to tell him where to move the helicopter.

Somehow through all of this, they managed to recover two of the lost three. The rescue swimmer actually gave his own lifevest to one of the rescued and treaded water while the other was being hoisted. It is believed that the third man was tangled up with one of the missiles and dragged to the bottom, although we looked most of the next two days with the help of about a dozen other ships and P3s from Jacksonville.

Not sure there's much point to this tale, other than to assure everyone that the Navy doesn't quickly give up when a man is lost. (Unless the man intentionally jumped, in which case I've noticed that they don't expend nearly as many resources.)

No a missle was shot off on the flight deck & into some parked planes. Aircraft Carriers film the flightdeck while underway for security and investigative purposes. What happened after the missle went off is a classic lesson in what not to do in a fire. Don't get me wrong there were hero's on that ship that day and a fire on ship of that proportion is mass confussion at best.

The ship went to General Quarters and the first responding team layed down Foam on the flightdeck. This was before what is know as Hi-CAPS a flight deck and hanger deck automatic sprinkler sysytem was put in place. A second team in the confussion came behind them spraying it off. 134 men died that day and 64 were injured. The Navy uses the actual flight deck camera footage in Fire Fighting & Damage Control classes. It's a horrid thing to see and drives home the point of training, saftey, fire prenvention, and what can happen to you.

The following is taken from a paragraph at www.ussforrestal.org

Forrestal arrived on Yankee Station on July 25 and immediately began combat operations, her aircraft flying 150 sorties during the next 4 days, without the loss of a single aircraft. At 10:52 A.M. on July 29, the second launch was being readied when a Zuni rocket accidentally fired from an F-4 Phantom parked on the starboard side of the flight deck aft of the island.

The missile streaked across the deck into a 400 gallon belly fuel tank on a parked A-4D Skyhawk. The ruptured tank spew highly flammable JP-5 fuel onto the deck which ignited spreading flames over the flight deck under other fully loaded aircraft ready for launch. The ensuing fire caused ordinance to explode and other rockets to ignite. Spread by the wind, the flames engulfed the aft end of the stricken ship turning the flight deck into a blazing inferno.. Berthing spaces immediately below the flight deck became death traps for fifty men, while other crewmen were blown overboard by the explosion.

Like I said if you see the footage you don't forget it.

Hey snipe. I went on the Forestal the day it returned to Norfolk after the fire (Sept.21,1967) I think. The America had just finished a Med cruise. Ten months since the old FDR had problems and could not relieve on time. I had friends on the Forestal and they gave me the tour. Picture all the glass in the Ameroos' brige blown out and a huge piece of the aft flight deck twisted and lifted like it was a tin can. You had to see it too really get an idea of the damage.

So we can assume that if the current man overboard is never found, the man upstairs could give a crap about him?

Maybe, a lot depends on your religious beliefs, if any. It's really pointless to debate this. Somebody anti-religious will say that it's crap that God would favor one person over another arbitrarily. A religious person will state in vague terms that God works in mysterious ways and that the whole thing is part of some cosmic plan that is too complex for us to comprehend. Where do you go from there?

I can imagine it.. Everything forward and above 4 elevator had to be rebuilt from what I heard. Heat transfers on a ship fast. We had a fire off the hanger bay close to 4 elevator in a storeroom. The heat transfered to the Barber shop on the 02 level and an ajoining JP-5 tank. I wasn't on duty that night so I wasn't on the fire hose but worked as an OBA investigator and cooling team.

I remember the old FDR we took some stuff off of it before it was sent to the boneyard.

Dumb question perhaps, but is it standard procedure for Navy personnel working on carrier decks to wear some kind of lightweight life preserver?

Having not been up close and personal with a carrier, I'm not sure but the flight deck seems to be more than 100' up from the water. Unless the man was lucky the fall may have killed him or knocked him unconscious. A life preserver would do little good in either case unless it inflates on contact with water.

Any carrier guys want to enlighten me a little as far as deck heights, life vests, and "man overboard nets" at the side of the flight deck?

Lets see the Flight deck is right at 90 ft from the water, If you work on the flight deck then you do wear a float coat and you have to manually inflate them its not automatic. Yes they do have nets around the ship but most flight deck crew will tell you its better to miss them if falling overboard to big of a chance of hitting your head or serious injury prior to hitting the water. I realize this sounds a little choppy but I wanted to answer you before I run out the door have a good one.

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