Whoah...
Sounds to me like the Officer flying the plane was the bungler for trying to land on a deck marked foul.
But as always it’s the grunts that take the rap.
Looks like the LSO waited a bit too long to give the wave off, that’s all.
It is not uncommon at all to keep approaching a fouled deck, as it may clear in time.
Hopefully the LSO (Landing Signal Officer) and the Squadron CO had a little chat with the pilot to go over what a FOUL means.
VAW-116 aboard
USS CORAL SEA CVA-43
Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club 68-69
A pair of bungling sailors nearly swabbed the deck with their faces as a high-speed jet came in for a landing - on them.... The jet, however, was not cleared to land on the carrier, which is noted by a blinking F seen in the video that means ‘foul.’.... The sailors were on the flight deck conducting a mandatory check of the cross-deck pendant, a steel cable that spans across the area....HMMMM? Who are the bunglers and who was the alert pilot? I never was a squid, but if I was ordered to check a cross deck pendant , I’d do it. If I was a pilot and saw a “F” I wouldn’t get that close. So who was wrong?
Working on the flight deck we had to constantly turn our head from side to side because with the flight deck helmets, the goggles, and the ear protection or head phones it was very difficult to know what going on around you. And everything around you will kill you. Much like driving down a freeway having all your windows in your car blacked except for your front windshield.
Saw one young green shirt step the wrong way and walk right into the prop of an E2 Hawkeye during a night launch.
By habit I still do the side by side with the head these 30 years later.
Methinks the USS GW is in for some additional safety training. There are two wrongs that I see in the video:
1. The pilot ignoring the fouled deck warning from the ALS
2. The sailors ignoring the approaching aircraft.
This is complacency at its best. As a former Naval aviation tech, I can assure you that when the ALS flashes “Foul”, no aircraft should be on final approach unless an emergency has been declared. And, when flight ops are ongoing, it is incumbent on EVERYONE on the flight deck to maintain awareness of what is going on around them.
The Navy can provide all the safety training in the world but, at the end of the day, it is up to each individual to make sure that they are protecting themselves. Incidents like these are why a flight deck is the most dangerous place in the world.
The two sailors are lucky, but I bet that the pilot needed a new flightsuit afterward and still has nightmares!
Bet those two had a nice chat with the Air Boss.
The deck went foul (”F” on the video image) when the Landing Signal Officer hit the waveoff lights. The pilot never saw the flight deck crew workers — moving too fast for that. Not aircrew error or LSO error. The error was a miscommunication between the flight deck crew and the air boss — life in the fast lane, as it were, and the LSOs caught the problem in time; the flight deck crew work finishing fixing a problem that needed to be fixed. I am an old Navy pilot and landing signal officer, and I receive the monthly LSO School newsletter, which featured the story about this incident in their most recent newsletter.
iPing for later.
DH was an ATC on Constellation back in the day,
I’m sure he’ll want to see this.
To the uninitiated these sailors may appear to be “bungling”, but as someone who has actually done their job I can assure you they were doing exactly what they should have been doing. One man was the wire checker and the other was the Topside Petty Officer, who is wearing a radio headset and is communication at all times.
Additionally, it is not unusual to have an aircraft continue an approach to a foul deck and wave it off at what appears to be the last moment.
This is just one dangerous aspect of a difficult job that thousands of guys just like them do on a daily basis. The flight deck is an inherently dangerous place, and not just anyone strolls across the landing area no matter what the media would have you believe.
ABECS (AW) USN, (Ret)
Navy family ping!
He has this statement but in the first sentence calls the two sailors "bungling". If they were supposed to be there and the plane wasn't, then I would say the pilot is the bungler, not the sailors.