Wasn’t there a story back during the 08 campaign that McCain released some live ordinance onto the deck of his carrier by pulling the wrong lever before takeoff? I never have though of McCain as a war “hero” Veteran yes, ex-POW yes, Hero, Maybe not.
On the morning of July 29, 1967, McCain was sitting in the cockpit of his Skyhawk waiting to be launched by the ship’s catapult. Another plane accidentally set off a Zuni missile that hit the fuel tank of McCain’s A-4, touching off a fire that spread rapidly across the ship. McCain managed to escape injury, but 134 sailors died and many others were badly burned. It was the worst U.S. Navy accident since World War Two.
Prior to that, he had three crashes:
The first crash took place during advanced flight training at Corpus Christi, Texas. According to McCain, the engine stalled while he was practicing landings. The plane fell into the water of the bay just off the airfield and knocked him unconscious. McCain woke up and somehow managed to get out of the cockpit and escaped serious injury. Investigators reported that they started the recovered engine without any problem, and their report left open the possibility of pilot error.
The next accident took place in Spain while McCain was assigned to an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean Sea. He tried to fly his propeller-driven A-1 fighter-bomber under a row of pylon-supported electric power lines. This was a “hotdogging” stunt by U.S. pilots in Europe that had caused outrage. McCain’s plane hit and damaged the lines so badly that thousands of people lost power.
In 1965, McCain flew a navy airplane to Philadelphia to attend the Army-Navy football game. On the way back to his base in Norfolk, Virginia, the plane’s engine quit, he said, so he bailed out. The plane crashed and was destroyed.
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The fifth and final one — McCain panicked over target, released his bombs too early, dove to evade an imaginary SAM, and ended up flying far too low and in range of AAA.
In short, and I say this as a combat pilot, he was a complete idiot and failure as a pilot.