[TigersEye]

That was an odd thing for him to say since almost none of the planes were near the island.

Diagram of planes on Forrestal deck.

[Flag_This]

I thought the same thing...but we are assuming the New York Times quoted him accurately in the first place.

[Flag_This]

"That was an odd thing for him to say since almost none of the planes were near the island."

I found a more complete version of the C.O.'s comment:

"For some unknown reason, a plane parked near the carrier’s island, midway up the 1,045-foot flight deck, experienced an “extreme wet start.” This malfunction, comparable to what happens when a cigarette lighter is ignited after having been filled too full, occurs about once a week on attack carriers, but almost never so severely as it did yesterday.

A thick tongue of flame lashed backward from the parked jet, igniting a missile on one of the dozen or so planes parked near the fantail, their engines turning over in readiness for a strike launching scheduled for 11 A.M.

The rocket “shot across the deck,” Captain Beling said, “and by a quirk of fate smashed into a fuel tank under a plane on the port side.”