This is why we stress damage control

2015-08-21T19:08:16-04:00

USS Forrestal fire

134 killed
161 wounded
$72,000,000 in damage

http://youtu.be/U6NnfRT_OZA

Response by SSgt Alex Robinson made Aug 21 at 2015 7:09 PM

2015-08-21T19:09:23-04:00

A fire or explosion at sea is one of the most worisome disaster scenarios from what I understand.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 21 at 2015 7:12 PM

2015-08-21T19:12:27-04:00

I remember the news accounts, what a catastrophe.

Response by CPO Joseph Grant made Aug 21 at 2015 8:30 PM

2015-08-21T20:30:08-04:00

A friend just sent me this IRT the Forrestal fire.
Gerald Farrier

Gerald Farrier grew up in Batesville, Arkansas, and joined the U.S. Navy as a teen. He had risen steadily as an aviation boatswain’s mate and, at the age of 31, was a chief petty officer on the USS Forrestal (CV-59), in charge of Repair Eight, the highly-trained team of sailors who would respond to plane crashes, fires, or other emergencies on the carrier’s flight deck. He was responsible not only for multi-million-dollar aircraft but for the lives of his shipmates as well.

On 29 July 1967, just five days after her arrival on Yankee Station, the Forrestal was preparing for a strike against targets in North Vietnam. The deck was loaded with aircraft, fully fueled and armed. Strapped into an A-4 Skyhawk was a young lieutenant, John McCain—a future senator and presidential candidate.

At 1052, stray voltage from an electrical charge used to start the engine of an F-4 Phantom across the flight deck ignited a Zuni rocket attached to the fighter’s port wing. The rocket roared across the flight deck and struck the fuel tank of McCain’s A-4, spilling and igniting two hundred gallons of aviation gasoline that quickly spread across the flight deck. Two bombs that had been attached to McCain’s aircraft also fell to the deck. Tapes from the ship’s PLAT (Pilot Landing Aid Television) system recorded what happened next. There, in stark black-and-white imaging, is Chief Farrier charging headlong into the fire, spraying his extinguisher, undeterred by the raging flames and the imminent danger of explosion, putting the lives of his shipmates before his own. And in a blinding flash that momentarily overwhelms the TV system, this courageous sailor is committed to the ages, personifying the Navy’s creed of honor, courage, and commitment in a manner that is both sobering and awe-inspiring. “It takes one’s breath away,” said one observer.

The Forrestal survived the fire, but it was a very near thing. McCain and the others who survived that terrible day on Yankee Station owe their lives to the men like Gerald Farrier who found in themselves the kind of courage and determination that sailors commemorate in that very old saying: DON’T GIVE UP THE SHIP.

Today, the Firefighting School in Norfolk, Virginia, bears the name of that courageous chief who paid the ultimate price trying to save his ship and his shipmates.

Response by SFC Mark Merino made Aug 21 at 2015 8:48 PM

2015-08-21T20:48:31-04:00

Great (old) video. Is it me or was damage control in WWII much better than it would be 20 years later?

Response by MAJ Ken Landgren made Aug 21 at 2015 9:15 PM

2015-08-21T21:15:09-04:00

Looks like anything can go wrong went wrong. I had a buddy who was prior Navy and was in charge of turning off the TVs if something bad happened on the aircraft carrier. He saw a ground crew getting sucked into a plane intake he shut off the TVs. This is the one where the helmet came off and destroyed the engine before he became liquefied.

Response by LCDR Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 21 at 2015 11:58 PM

2015-08-21T23:58:24-04:00

Still a very powerful video to use for training and stressing the importance of safety.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 22 at 2015 1:39 AM

2015-08-22T01:39:02-04:00

USS Forrestal.. eye witness account.. (not me but a Navy Vet. friend).. " A plane was getting ready to take off ..the front lock on the "Z" rocket had unlocked.. then the rear lock could not hold and gave out. We think that the bomb was armed for some reason, not sure because he was getting ready to take off..it hit and bounced and BOOM.. anyway my sleeping birth was right under that tail section below the flight deck, had I not been on duty I would have been killed in my rack. Going back to visit and tour the Forrestal.. I could see the refurbished, new steel, and fresh paint.. but after all these years I could still smell the bodies of my brothers that died that day." He also said that McCains plan was lost in the fire and hit the one next to him.. that McCain did not cause it.