http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara_Hultgreen
You are right her RIO BARELY survived.
More info. . .sad. . .
http://www.cmrlink.org/CMRLawsuit.asp?docID=152
“What the Navy Did Not Want Known
From 1993-1994, then-Lt. Patrick J. Burns was a naval flight officer and instructor in VF-124, a west coast (San Diego) squadron that trained Lts. Hultgreen and Lohrenz to fly the F-14 Tomcat. On several occasions, Lt. Burns warned local commanders that the two women were not fully competent to fly the Tomcat in carrier operations, but to no avail. In the post-Tailhook scandal era, the Navy was eager to win a “race with the Air Force” by getting women into combat aviation.
At an all-officers meeting attended by Lt. Burns in the summer of 1994, then-Cmdr. Thomas Sobiek, who was the commander of the training squadron VF-124, informed a group of concerned instructors that the women would graduate to the fleet, no matter what. At that point Burns began to realize two things: One of the women pilots would die, and Navy officials would deny reasons why it happened. Lt. Burns asked for the help of CMR because communications up and down the chain of command had completely broken down.”