was
MCain’s plane lost,
and counted against him as one of the
five planes he trashed?
Does that include the one he was shot down in?
Five planes. Doesn't that make him an ace?
Yes, this was one of the 5 in his Russian Ace count. 1960 - Corpus Christi bay. Too low on his power to maintain level flight in a turn (he lied and said the engine quit). 1961 - flew into power lines in Spain, causing a massive blackout. He did get the badly damaged plane back to the carrier (No indication he lied about this incident). 1965 - ran out of gas while flying a taxpayer owned plane, at taxpayer expense, to a football game. (He lied and said there was an explosion in the engine, but no sign of that was found. He got the official report amended to ‘failure or malfunction’ of an engine part. 1967 Forrestal - McCain lied and said a missile hit his plane. The official report found that White’s plane, not McCain’s was hit. 1967 crash in North Viet Nam. McCain said he was shot down by enemy fire, but I don’t think anyone has researched the Vietnamese records.
In any event, we have three documented lies by McCain; clearly conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. But an Academy graduate and son and grandson of senior admirals has to be protected by the service, doesn’t he?