History Channel

[dannyd]

Hmmm . . .
Was McCain guilty of a "wet start", that started the Forrestal's fire, and the aftermath report written to clear him and save the reputations of his father and grandfather, who were both admirals?

Or was it a nasty falsehood conjured up by a/some McCain bashers?

From the report they were loading rockets on the Fighters (believe they were F-8's) and bypassing safeties. The bombs that did the most damage were from WW2 and no one on the roof (flight deck) knew the cook out time. ( how many seconds before the fire would detonate the bombs) The only thing covered up about the late Senator was he sucked at flying. Unfortunately I worked for a Admiral's son that also sucked at flying. He had four mishaps I think and they were all overlooked. The last was a class C and when the powers that be read my paperwork they said Thank you never another word was said.

 

[RicinYakima]

53 years down the road, we will probably never know. The "airdales" were working 20 hours a day turning planes around, hundreds of things could have happened. Besides mechanical failures are not unknow and the thing may have taken off as soon as it was plugged in, everyone there was dead.

 

[RicinYakima]

The bombs that did the most damage were from WW2 and no one on the roof (flight deck) knew the cook out time. ( how many seconds before the fire would detonate the bombs)

I used lots of WW2 and Korean War explosives as a Combat Engineer. Probably 10% of it would not go off, so we always used a little C4 around the detonators to give it a little boast. We blew up scores of WW2 iron bombs that didn't go off, especially the stuff given the RVNAF that had sat on the Pacific islands for twenty years before it got there. A large percentage of the VC mines were fueled with Comp B removed from dud bombs.

 

[dannyd]

53 years down the road, we will probably never know. The "airdales" were working 20 hours a day turning planes around, hundreds of things could have happened. Besides mechanical failures are not unknow and the thing may have taken off as soon as it was plugged in, everyone there was dead.

I was an aircraft maintenance chief for 9 of my 20 years ( unfortunately made chief at 28 years old) we always worked around the clock. But that's no excuse somethings you have to follow the rules or bad things happen. I worked for a couple of guys that were on the FID that day and you had to have some pretty big stones to not follow the rules on somethings. Did we cut corners yes but just like reloading you better know which corners you can cut.

 

[462]

I was a weapons mechanic (munitions and armament loading, gun (M-39 and M-61) maintenance, and weapons systems maintenance) on the F-100 in Viet Nam, and F-4 back in the States. Prior to loading an aircraft a check is made to assure it is grounded, and a stray voltage check made on all gun, bomb rack, etc. electrical connections. That said, wartime creates an urgency that causes shortcuts to be taken. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes not.

I can attest to the fact that when loaded aircraft are hit by incoming mortars and rockets, their 20 mm ammo will cook off but their bombs will remained unaffected. Lucky? Very likely!

 

[Petrol & Powder]

Hmmm . . .
Was McCain guilty of a "wet start", that started the Forrestal's fire, and the aftermath report written to clear him and save the reputations of his father and grandfather, who were both admirals?

Or was it a nasty falsehood conjured up by a/some McCain bashers?

That falsehood was conjured up.

McCain did nothing to cause the fire on the Forrestal. His A4 was struck by a Zuni rocket that was launched due to a malfunction on a F4 nearby. The Zuni penetrated the A4, passing completely through the aircraft and landing in the sea. The resulting massive fuel leak from McCain's A4 spilled onto the deck and was ignited almost immediately. The old bombs (WWII era) that were installed on the planes cooked off before crews could extinguish the fire.

The Zuni rocket malfunction was the result of deviation from two separate safety procedures that were intentionally altered to increase the tempo of aircraft launches. The safety pins were removed before the plane was on the catapult AND the pigtail (electrical connection) was plugged into the aircraft before the plane was on the catapult.
The F4 was being started with an external cart. When the pilot of the F4 (Jim Bangert) switched from external power to internal power, stay voltage caused the Zuni to malfunction and launch. Bangret was later cleared of any wrong doing.

 

[popper]

big problem was the old bombs/ammo being loaded were already leaking but only thing available. Skipper wanted to deep six the stuf but had no alternative. Left it crated on the flight deck - safe as possible. Stuff was supposed to be deep sixed originally but it was all that was locally available. Can't fight a war without ammo. Her BIL was on big O, had a few A7 guys fly into the stern. Big mess. Buddy was on Kersage, lots of fires. I was skipper's tele talker for a while, often had fires in the chief's mess, toaster left on when called for GQ. Had to stand down for a shoot till DC got it out.

 

[Petrol & Powder]

Yep, the Forrestal had taken on the old ordinance and they were not happy about it. But, as you correctly pointed out, can't fight a war without ammo. They hoped to get rid of that stuff quickly.

The Forrestal disaster was similar to many large scale accidents in that it was a series of issues, rather than a single point failure.

The ordinance was old (some was marked 1935) and when the fire started, it cooked off sooner than expected.
The trained damage control personnel were killed or wounded in the initial explosion, severely reducing the number of trained firefighters available (a mistake the Navy would not repeat).
The ship was not equipped with a deck wash down system (those came later).
In the interest of increased tempo for aircraft launching, safety procedures were altered. Ironically, it was Jim Bangert that authorized one of the short cuts (the early attachment of the pigtails). He falsely believed the remaining safety procedure (the safety pins) was still in effect and that his approved short cut would be acceptable because the remaining safety would still be in place.

Despite all of things that went wrong on the Forrestal, a lot went right.
The captain turned the ship and maneuvered so that the wind across the deck would assist in containing the fire.
When the fire threatened the liquid oxygen plant a sailor dumped the liquid oxygen overboard with a small hose, possibly preventing a far bigger problem.
Aircraft with fuel and ordinance already loaded were pushed overboard.
Other ships came to assist the Forrestal and her crew saved the ship.

 

[dannyd]

That falsehood was conjured up.

McCain did nothing to cause the fire on the Forrestal. His A4 was struck by a Zuni rocket that was launched due to a malfunction on a F4 nearby. The Zuni penetrated the A4, passing completely through the aircraft and landing in the sea. The resulting massive fuel leak from McCain's A4 spilled onto the deck and was ignited almost immediately. The old bombs (WWII era) that were installed on the planes cooked off before crews could extinguish the fire.

The Zuni rocket malfunction was the result of deviation from two separate safety procedures that were intentionally altered to increase the tempo of aircraft launches. The safety pins were removed before the plane was on the catapult AND the pigtail (electrical connection) was plugged into the aircraft before the plane was on the catapult.
The F4 was being started with an external cart. When the pilot of the F4 (Jim Bangert) switched from external power to internal power, stay voltage caused the Zuni to malfunction and launch. Bangret was later cleared of any wrong doing.

The late Senator was just in the wrong place at time. Lewis Puller Jr. and the Senator had one thing in common, they were there because it was basically the family business. I would have imagined both wished they had done something else.

 

[Petrol & Powder]

The late Senator was just in the wrong place at time. Lewis Puller Jr. and the Senator had one thing in common, they were there because it was basically the family business. I would have imagined both wished they had done something else.

Agreed.
Regardless of any later actions by McCain or positions he later held; on that day in 1967 McCain was sitting in a fully fueled and armed A4 Skyhawk on the flight deck of the U.S.S. Forrestal. A Zuni rocket went completely through his A4 while he was waiting to take off. He couldn't avoid the accident, he didn't contribute to the accident and he barely escaped the event with his life.

And in the "for what it's worth" category, After the Forrestal incident was over, the U.S.S. Oriskany was short of pilots and aircraft due to combat losses, so John McCain volunteered to transfer to the Oriskany. He transferred on September 30, 1967. On October 26, 1967 McCain was captured and became a P.O.W.

 

[dannyd]

Agreed.
Regardless of any later actions by McCain or positions he later held; on that day in 1967 McCain was sitting in a fully fueled and armed A4 Skyhawk on the flight deck of the U.S.S. Forrestal. A Zuni rocket went completely through his A4 while he was waiting to take off. He couldn't avoid the accident, he didn't contribute to the accident and he barely escaped the event with his life.

And in the "for what it's worth" category, After the Forrestal incident was over, the U.S.S. Oriskany was short of pilots and aircraft due to combat losses, so John McCain volunteered to transfer to the Oriskany. He transferred on September 30, 1967. On October 26, 1967 McCain was captured and became a P.O.W.

He had to go, dad told him he would never make 05 or have command if he didn't get in the war. The fact that he got shot down probably saved many sailors because he would never be given a sea command. His only command was VA-174 the A-7 training squadron, where the CO was the guy that gave out awards and walked around the squadron. Not that POW's didn't make good CO's I had two of them on different ships.