I am looking to see when the Truman deployed but what I am finding is she was extended in Dec due to the events anticipated and since the Ukraine invasion.
I don’t know the deck status myself, but I can speak from experience of extended deployment in 90/91’ for DS, the non- skid on the flight deck gets worn down to bare metal after 5 or 6 thousand traps. Add a little oil and hydraulic fluid, and you have a surface that is really slick and easy to slide around on. Maybe moving the aircraft in a pitching sea, it got away from the tractor. Brakes cant prevent sliding With a slick deck.
Glad no one was hurt.
Absolutely. I remember watching one of our Corsairs being spotted one time, and they were backing it up to the edge of the flight deck. The ship took a roll, and when the Yellow Shirt driving the tractor put on his brakes, as you said...with the non-skid caked with rubber and grease, or just worn down, the tractor and plane continued towards the edge of the deck.
There was a hullabaloo of the tractor driver standing on his brakes, the Plane Captain standing on HIS brakes, and people with chocks trying to throw then under the wheels (back in the day when chocks were two big pieces of wood with a rope between them)
The tires bumped against that elevated rim around the flight deck, and I am certain that there were a few other people watching who wondered if the wheels would ride over it since my memory tells me it it was only 4-6” high.