My promised article concerning McCain and the USS Forrestal(CV-59) Fire

23 July 2015 | US Navy Vet

[US Navy Vet]

I will not use Wikipedia as some people have BUTTHURT with Wiki. This is what is will use: http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/cv-59/59f-0729.htm

[DesertRhino]

Third

[Riley]

Thank you for posting this. I was Marine Corps and not Navy, the only flight deck I was ever on was on an LPD, so the perspective is appreciated. :-)

[rednesss]

McAmnesty is still a sellout now and whatever he was in the past, he’s a piece of shit now.

[mad_as_he$$]

I despise McLame; but a pilot wielding an extinguisher in that already hugh fire would of not been helpful to the DC crews and could of cost other lives. I give him a pass on that. There are plenty of other things he is guilty of.

[shadeaud]

My recollection is similar to yours with the age of the ordinances I seem to recall a certain inactive base 35 miles north of The German border, that base emptied its bomb storage area and a small number of Air Force security( aka Air Police personnel were flown to Rein Mein . My recollection is that the shipment was scheduled to be some big playground in another theater. Point is that we were cleaning out our inventory of dumb bombs( bombing blind without specific confirmed coordinances, what difference does it make if they explode or end up in a rice patty.

[SubMareener]

Thanks for posting this. It clears a lot of the smoke. I was an EM3 on USS Columbus (CG-12) when Forrestal was in Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for repairs. She seemed to have a fire, or a drill every week or so. Her nickname on Columbus was “Firestall”.

Later, in 1973, I was an LTJG on USS TREPANG (SSN674) in the Med. I went home on leave the day the October War started. When I got back to Naples, TREPANG had left without me, so I got to write the “Patrol Report” for SUBFLOT 8. They sent me out to Independence for a week as “submarine liaison officer”. WOW, Carriers are dangerous places! I was never so happy to be back on my nice safe nuclear submarine!

[thackney]

Another source with details

From: Naval Aviation News, October 1967
compiled and edited by Senior Chief Journalist John D. Burlage
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=73

[smokingfrog]

http://youtu.be/h3gOMvdRq-M

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

We’ve been over this before here. A pilot loses a plane for any reason, then after all is said and done said pilot is lucky to be able to return to the cockpit flying for Uncle Sugar, even if the loss wasn’t his fault. After two aircraft losses then it’s hard to ever fly again on the taxpayers dime, unless your father is high up which McCain’s was. Once again it’s either a bad or unlucky pilot, neither type can the taxpayer afford. So when this accident happened, his time as a USN pilot should have been over.

[US Navy Vet]

It can’t be, that is why I wrote the article. McCain can take(deservedly) the blame for LOTS of things but the Forrestal Fire AINE’T one of them.

[mad_as_he$$]

Gerald was a very brave man that day.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

I hope you do not mind my adding HTML code. I've long wondered about the circumstances and vaguely recall that McCaon was not to blame. Though one national talk show hosts has insisted that it was McCain' fault. Doesn't look like to me.

Ok on the day that this tragic event occurred

• the Forrestal was conducting Pretty "Routine" Flight Operations in support of Operations off of the coast of N. Viet Nam(Yankee Station);
• when all of a sudden(MY OPINION)
  • probably had something to do with and electrical "surge" or
  • maybe the safety pin was not in the proper position)
• a Zuni 5 Inch Rocket(See the Flight Deck spot Drawing(with chronology) from F-4B Aircraft Number 110 fired and
• went across the Flight Deck Striking and
• detonating A-4E Number 405(LCDR White) and
• the resultant fire and explosion occurred under and
• on LCDR John S. McCain's A-4E number 416.

The Bombs [that] were placed on both A-4E's were

• VERY Old and
• were not up the even mid-1960's safety standards,
• they were of possibly early 1950s or
• maybe even 1940s "standards" and
• nonetheless
  • had been sitting in storage at Naval Magazine Facility Subic Bay/Cubi Point Republic of the Philippines and
  • [had] deteriorated over the years due to
  • Heat/Humidity and
  • just plain time.

The Bombs that were "issued" to the Forrestal

• were in particularity bad shape
  • (they were "rusted" and
  • had some of the explosive substance leaking out of them
    • (making them EXTERMLY unstable and
    • VERY EXPLOSVIVE)
  • (also these bomb were of a "thin-skin" variety making them VERY susceptible to "Cook-Off").

NO ONE,

• not the Ship's CO,
• The Carrier Air Wing Ordinance Officer(CAG Gunner),
• The Squadron CO's,
• Air Crews,
• Flight Deck Crews,
• Ordinance People
• NO ONE wanted to use these bombs;
• (The Ship's CO tried to send them back but the Ammunition Ship wouldn't take them back
  • (there were NO other bombs "in theatre" available to ANY of the carriers at that time to accomplish missions;
  • So these substandard bombs were issued to the squadrons and
  • loaded on the bombers(A-4Es).

Any way

• when the Zuni hit LCDR White's(he later died of this) A-4
• it caused an fuel deluge and
• it "Cooked-Off" the bomb(substandard one) and
• spread to LCDR McCain's A-4E(I don't where all of this "Wet-Start" SH!T came from)
• (McCain also had one of these substandard bombs(yes it a little later "Cooked-Off" as well).

McCain saw all of this and

• get out of his A-4E and
• "crawled" onto the Aircraft's "Refueling Rod
  • (these are about maybe 10 or 12 feet on of the Deck)"
  and
• dropped Clear of the developing carnage;
• Once all of this had occurred
• the die was cast and
• the Forrestal was in DEEP TROUBLE!

[TigersEye]

USS Forrestal Aircraft Carrier Disaster 46 minute documentary

John McCain escapes Forrestal explosion 1:17 Raw film of the Forrestal fire.

Diagram of planes on Forrestal deck.

NS025929.– This diagram was taken from a drawing provided by USS Forrestal and shows the location of CVW-17 aircraft spotted for launch moments before the fire broke out. From "Naval Aviation News," October 1967 issue.

[smokingfrog]

http://www.virtualwall.org/df/FarrierGW01a.htm

[Georgia Girl 2]

Watch the video. Flames coming out from under two planes starting with McCain’s. (wet start). Ball of flames came first then missile took off.

[TigersEye]

Bull crap.

[tanknetter]

Not sure thats really the case today. Few years back I met the first pilot who had to step outside and F-22 Raptor while it was in flight. He was part of the OT&E unit. Problem was quickly traced to sensor malfunctions and he was up flying another Raptor about a week later.

Again, thats today. Back in the 1960s there was still a latent WWII mentality that surviving a crash made a pilot better. Go look at the Navy pilots who put their planes into Lake Michigan (the ones that for the last 20 years have been brought up and restored) during training and went on to successful combat service.

Heck, consider that Chester Nimitz grounded his first command (a destroyer), went on to a successful career in submarines (where he became one of the Navy’s experts on diesel propulsion) and ran the Pacific Fleet in WWII.

With aircraft now costing in the hundreds of millions of dollars each, and warships in the billions, with both expected to last 40 years or more, it’s a different world today. But I’m also pretty sure those guys who crashed a B-2 on Guam (another sensor malfunction situation) didn’t lose their flying careers.

[dadfly]

thanks for the post. mccain is a menace to our nation, but some of the accounts “flying around” here were pegging my bs meter.

and btw good move avoiding wiki.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Well you have taken the blue pill once too often. Why didn’t McCain make Admiral? He was a total eff up but his daddy and granddaddy were admirals and any and all of his antic got covered up.

[Steely Tom]

Was this the second or third plane he lost?

From FactCheck.org:

McCain did lose two Navy aircraft while piloting them. One crash was found to be be McCain's fault, the other due to an engine failure of undetermined cause.. A third was destroyed on the deck of the carrier USS Forrestal when a missile fired accidentally from another plane hit either the plane next to McCain's or, less likely, his own aircraft, triggering a disastrous fire that killed 134 sailors and nearly killed McCain. A fourth plane was lost when he was shot down over North Vietnam on a bombing mission over Hanoi.

A fifth alleged "crash" turns out to be a misinterpretation of a flight accident that did not result in the loss of the aircraft. McCain admitted to causing that incident through "daredevil clowning" but returned safely.

I don't know what official Navy rules are, but it doesn't seem quite fair to describe the aircraft that was blown to pieces after it was engulfed in a massive fire caused by a missile launched from another pilot's machine as a plane McCain "lost."

There have been many comments here at FR over the years to the effect that any pilot who had an aircraft loss charged to him (as McCain did, according to the FactCheck writeup) would have been washed out of the program, and that the only reason that didn't happen to McCain was because of his family connections in the Navy.