THIS DATE IN HAWK HISTORY.... HEROISM ON THE HIGH SEAS.... Deploying on her 17th major deployment, departing her home port of San Diego on 29 June 1994, by the late night hours of 11-12 July 1994, The Hawk had steamed to a position of roughly 250 nautical miles south/southwest of Atsugi Japan. Late in the night, while attempting to make an arrested landing in what was later referred to in the accident reports as... Rough Seas aboard a ....severely listing flight deck... The Landing Signal Officer, LSO gave a last second wave off to an approaching F-14/A Tomcat, assigned to The Screaming Eagles of VF-51. The wave-off, the severely pitching deck, the heavy seas, the night.... Many things were in this chain of events... Catastrophically, the Tomcat struck the round down ramp at the stern of The Hawk, and broke into two pieces and the ensuing fireball immediately transformed the topside stern landing area into a virtual sea of flames and wreckage. Approximately half of the plane fell off the port side into the sea... The rest of it was flaming debris scattered violently across the stern of the ship, and burning brightly in the night. Miraculously, at damn near the exact second of impact, the ejection cycle propelled the pilot and radar intercept officer, RIO, up and out of the Tomcat, pretty much as it was breaking apart on the stern. The two Aviators then found themselves falling in their parachute harnesses, not harmlessly into the seas, but.... Yep... Right into the flaming sea of wreckage on the deck!! The RIO was luckier than the pilot, and struck the deck in a relatively flame free area, but the pilot was not so lucky. He came down into what he later described as a sea of fire. Five topside Ships Company flight deck crewmen rushed directly into the fire, with no regard to their own personal safety, and dragged the pilot to safety. He suffered severe burns, but did survive, and did return to active service. The extraordinary heroism of those five crewmen saved his life. Flight deck fire fighting crews quickly put out the fires, and due to a well timed dive into the padded net of the LSO platform, the LSO was fine as well. All ended well, and there were no other casualties. A Tomcat flying into the fantail and breaking apart into a massive fireball, but yet no deaths or injuries to the crew... Yet another fine example of just how well good training and operational readiness pay off, in the extremely dangerous environs of a pitching aircraft carrier deck in rough seas. THIS DATE IN HAWK HISTORY.... 11-12 July 1994!!
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 15:28:46 +0000
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