Posted on Aug 21, 2015
CPO Joseph Grant
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USS Forrestal fire

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

http://youtu.be/U6NnfRT_OZA
Posted in these groups: F3af5240 Military History
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SSG Military Police
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Edited 9 y ago
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.
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LCDR Deputy Department Head
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Still a very powerful video to use for training and stressing the importance of safety.
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MAJ Ken Landgren
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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.
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MAJ Ken Landgren
MAJ Ken Landgren
9 y
CPO Joseph Grant - From casual observation of the aircraft carrier in your film, it looked very random, like their was very little supervision.
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CPO Joseph Grant
CPO Joseph Grant
9 y
MAJ Ken Landgren

I believe you're correct on that. You have to remember that all hands worked to save the ship and some accidentally sabotaged the efforts of others i.e. spraying water which washed away AFFF causing the class bravo fire to reflash. Seawater was sprayed onto electrical equipment that was exposed by the explosions on the flight deck. This was such a massive casualty that it was nearly impossible to coordinate damage control efforts.
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MAJ Ken Landgren
MAJ Ken Landgren
9 y
CPO Joseph Grant - I have seen restaurants gets so busy that the staff gets slower because the could not process info fast enough.
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CPO Joseph Grant
CPO Joseph Grant
9 y
MAJ Ken Landgren
That's a really good observation. I'm sure information overload came into play. I'm not sure anymore if Damage Control Central was even habitable at this point. I've never served on a carrier and quite honestly I normally only saw them in the periscope crosshairs so I wouldn't know the layout.
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