Is it true the Zuni rocket from the F-4 struck his centerline tank? I thought that was the initial fire, from his tank being struck by the Zuni.
If I read the accounts before, not including the loss of this plane, then McCain lost 3 other aircraft?
Some of those who were on the Forrestal and other persons familiar with the ordnance told me that because the rocket did not hit McCain’s craft, only actions by the pilot could have caused any bomb to fall from McCain’s Skyhawk. These sources — who spoke under the condition that they not be publicly identified — agree with each other that, if any bomb fell from the McCain airplane, it was because of actions that he took either in error or panic upon seeing the fire on the deck or in his hasty exit from the plane. Two switches in the cockpit of a Skyhawk need to be thrown to drop such a bomb, according to the sources.
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/investigating-john-mccains-tragedy-at-sea/
It was the Skyhawk next to him that was hit and had a couple of bombs knocked off. The fuel caught on fire and engulfed all the planes from the squadron spotted on the aft portion of the flight deck, which was one of the standard spots for aircraft spotting for a launch.
I believe that is true, that including the loss of his plane over North Vietnam, he crashed or damaged several other planes.
However, back in the late Forties, Fifties and Sixties, crashing a military plane happened with such regularity and frequency that it wasn’t necessarily a barrier to a career. I read the statistics a while back on plane losses in peacetime during those years, and it was staggering...I had no idea.
I admit, that is one of the things I found out during my service, is that the military used to crash a lot of planes, but unless it happened in your direct locality in pre-Internet times (and it didn’t crash into an apartment building killing a lot of people) you would rarely if ever hear of them.