I was Fly One yellow standing by the first bird on cat 2. Heard the ejection seat go off and looked back and up. Saw the chute ran to elevator 2. Myself and about 8 others grabbed the parachute. The pilot slammed the side of the ship and was told he had a compound fracture. I’ll never forgot hearing him begging us to save him.
@@Dstew57A yeah I saw a pic of him in hospital a few days after. He was in good spirits. Hyper extended his left leg and dislocated his right shoulder or something close to that. Hard to remember it’s been 30 yrs now sheesh I’m old! They said he punched his tanks too. Imagine that, in 2.2 seconds get launched, decide something is wrong, to fix what’s wrong punch tanks all while deciding to go after burner then realise that’s not enough it’s time to eject now and going through that thought process in 2.2 seconds that’s the incredible part
Was a medical officer on board. Right after evening chow we were in medical and I just happen to look up at the TV and watched it happen. Very surreal. Pilot did have a fracture to his tibia but not an open fracture. Well done to the deck crew who jumped on his chute and kept him out of the water. We were off of Australia at the time heading for Arabian gulf.
I was the airwing safety officer this day. Just went down to the hangar bay to do my checks when I heard the bird launch. Knew something didn't sound right. For some reason I knew something happened, bolted up to the flight deck, saw all the action in the port catwalk, jumped in. I was one of the folks pulling on the risers and holding on so the pilot would land in the sea. The chute had go caught on some of the HF antenna couplings (or whatever they are called) and he was banging against the ship, he suffered a fractured ankle and lots of bruises. As a side note, the 5MC, a loudspeaker system used to communicate on the flight deck, cannot be heard in the hangar bay.
Roger, wilco. It does happen and quite so. "Uncanny" is really normal AND getting able to deal with such unusual phenomena routinely is the TRICK to getting through it successfully for folx who never encountered anything like this, yet suddenly MUST do so and more, as told, until relieved. That too, is uncanny as well and is affective beyond one's active duty. Truly, a one-of-a-kind, lifechanging, magnificent and wonderful bonus to wildly uncanny duty like this. Support and devotion from top-notch folx like these sailors scrambling to a man to get a downed mate is very unusual, really. It is SO beautiful too in that they're a crew, doing preestablished tasks for rescue in nightmare conditions at sea that objectively, scientifically, abstractly if you will allow, that clearly shows a civilization worthy of such power to defend to such lengths by these especially armed airmen, soldiers and sailors. They are magnificent to see here.
Oh man I have been waiting for this one to pop up for years on RU-vid. So I'm standing right behind the engines on the Port side catwalk waiting to go down to the AE shop as this was the last launch of the day for day shift. I turned because I saw the F-18 go into burner and it caught my attention as they rarely if ever go to burner as they have enough thrust to launch. Anyway then I felt the huge bang as the shuttle hit the steam buffer at the front of the cat under full load, I had never felt that before on the carrier. By time I could get out of the catwalk back up on deck the guys standing near the crotch ran up to grab the pilot parachute as it caught on the crotch Port catwalk and he dangled over the ocean with the carrier at flight op speed. If I recall correctly both his knees got shattered. Surreal. I remember it like yesterday.
I was with VF-154 that night, prepping my jet aft of the island. I had my back to the cats, when the flight deck lights up. I saw the hornet drop of the deck, the the chute coming down. Then a group of us starting running toward the parachute. It was surreal moment on the flight deck. The next day, the squadron had another hornet hooked up the launch bar, and i believe it was the squadron's MO and had his face above the launch bar, when broke free again, hitting him in the face. Some bad mojo in that squadron.
Launch bar broke and went into the engine. Bad day all around. I was driving tractors at the time and watched all this happen right in front of me. Only plane we lost in my 4 yrs on board.
I remember I was below decks in 3-69-01-L, when they called away the emergency and later on when Capt Refo addressed the situation with this cold cat launch incident.
