" Accident cover up " what a joke. I wonder how many A-3's were put in the drink and aircrews lost with this aircraft from the 1950's to the end of it's flying career with the U.S. Navy. Too many and too long to list. This was just a bad luck operational night for the Nimitz back in Jan 1987. Period. Hard Copy was a tabloid t.v. show that made rating by trying to sensationalize stories such as this.
Screw trying to make a decent landing. Just put the damn thing into the barrier !! I read about an incident similar to this, an A-3 was having trouble getting aboard a carrier, and the order was given to abort further landing attempts, climb to altitude and for the crew to bail out. The crew made it out okay and was eventually rescued. But the A-3 didn't crash into the sea right away ( It finally did though ) It started circling and everyone was afraid it would crash into the ship. True story
Glad to see postings from those 'in the know', rather than armchair quarterback losers who have never worked around aircraft operations at all. My hat is off to all those who have done/still do this job.
The A-3 is a big plane,when I was aboard the Ike as a hangar deck crewman,we called it a Whale. These aren't attached to the normal air wing,but are sent to the carrier after it gets to the operating area,Med.,Indian Ocean.So, these pilots don't get as many traps aboard the specific carrier as the rest of the air wing does.I heard that this bird was designed for delivering nuke weapons but has since been used for spy missions.What a terrible tragedy...that kind of thing will sap crew morale.
What amazing journalism, implying our soldiers and sailors and their officers are heartless automatons who won't help each other in times of emergency. Gods bless the USA where free speech grants even these idiots the right to voice their nonsense.
Hard Copy??? Really??? This is your hard hitting investigative journalism???? I was aboard the old Oriskany, CV-34 with VA-153...an A-7A/B outfit. This is NOTHING out of the unusual, unfortunately. A-3's have been taking the wire before the Nimitz was built!! They have an unnerving habit of hopping from main mount to main mount as they trap. Don't feed this bullshit with your bullshit hypothesis....
My first guess was that it was a J-5 Vigilante, but when I read the wiki article, USS Nimitz (CVN-68), it was listed as an EA-6B Prowler, the narration calls it an A-3 Skywarrior and that seems to be the most plausible. Ultimately the Navy did the same thing that it did with the Sullivan Brothers, Captain McVeigh, and Clayton Hartwig, they found someone to scapegoat by drug testing all the deceased deck crew even though the blame was definitely not theirs. This pilot was insufficiently trained.
@Zyworski I think you are talking about two seperate crashes. There was an earlier incident when an EA 6B plowed into the six pack at the front of the ship killing several flight deck crew. This incident was an A3 Whale that slid off the front of the ship wo hitting any other planes.
the wiki article on the Nimitz mentions a prowler crash as you describe, but never mentions a Sky Warrior, but I think we can agree the plane in this video is a Sky Warrior. Further investigation puts the date of this crash on 1/25/87 and the Prowler crash on 5/26/81. I got the articles mixed up, but not the planes.
this is such bullshit. i was an EA-3B crew chief in VQ-1 at the time. i knew ron callendar. this wasnt covered up. it was a flight deck mishap just like hundreds before it. Hard Copy was such a BS show, thats why it's no longer on the air.
I was there and flew in that plane earlier in the day. I know what happened, why it happened, why they didn't bail out, etc. The Hard Copy account is mostly accurate. The tape was not hiding anything that the families already knew. Definitely pilot error and a series of errors in all the passes that the plane made before it crashed. I was there and it seems like it was yesterday. So sad for the families. For the seven who perished, God rest their souls. (former CT)
...some deep deep trouble. I am quite amazed that they kept it secret for so long and was amazed to finally see it on the television for all to see. None of the crew were recovered... terrible.......
...and yes, it was icy cold waters in the Med during January. The plane bobbed about for a few minutes with it's tail sticking out of the water. Word has it that they crew could not escape because the hard landing on the deck damaged the escape hatches. In a matter of minutes the plane sank to the bottom of the Med. Terrible tragedy. Now the word went out that if anyone had a tape of that flight, they were to immediately hand it over or there would be a severe court marshall and you'd be in....
...we were watching the flight ops that evening and every squadron at the time videotaped the flights. In the final pass, the A3 was to land face first into the net which was to envelop the aircraft and slow it down. The pilot freaked out and started to pull up thinking he could come back around and make it. What he did was he pulled up and ripped the front landing gear off which pulled the nose of the pane down into the flight deck. the plane slid along and went right off the ship...
...an aircraft carrier. Ironically the escape hatches were on the bottom of the plane. There were 5 officers and 2 enlisted that flew in the plane. The pilot was called a "Greenie" because he was new to flying and landing on a flight deck. It's hard enough to land during the day but at night is it extremely diffiult as the ship pitches to and fro in the darkness, He made a couple passes and failed to grab the cable with its arresting hook, which slows down the plane during landing. ..
I was on the Nimitz when this happened. I was attatched to E2C Hawkeye squadron VAW-124 and I worked in the maintenance shop with all the Cheifs and Officers in charge of our squadron during these night flight ops. I was the Aviation Storekeeper that night. Certainly HardCopy is a rag of a show but there is some truth to the story.
The aircraft is called the A3 and it is a spy plane. It's nickname for the plane was called "The Whale" because it was the largest aircraft you could land on board..
what bull shit ICY COLD WATER OF THE MED.. yeah shure more like the luke warm water of the med. Secret video tape...i dont think so the navy tapes all of the landings No secrets about it. where do they come up with this crap
im From Long Island and i can tell you beyond a dout that this wasn't covered up -_- matter of fact Ly Levien is named at the Suffulk county KIA memorial, listed as lost in a peace time accident. body un recovered after intense search
What a load of horseshit. First of all Hard Copy was a crap tabloid program. Second, you don't do search and rescue with a Nimitz class carrier, that's what helos and frigates are for. Third, there was obviously a problem with the aircraft or they'd have tanked and tried to trap all night if they had too. Fourth, sink or float, if the crew doesn't make it out there's nothing you can do.
No real reason to release for public viewing.WORSE is the over voice continually describing the pilot as rattled,sliding in a shower of sparks,etc. I would not want my next of kin to witness this, be asked questions,etc. It might be useful for pilot and flight deck training.THIS does not belong on Hard Copy and the Killed in this accident do not need to be named without expilicit desire from an affected family member.Before you comment against my post...I served on subs
The A-3D Skywarrior was the largest carrier-borne aircraft in the naval inventory, nicknamed "The Whale" by those of us in the flight deck crews. The plane itself is classified, along with its missions. It's sad the the Aircraft Commander wasn't experienced in night traps & all hands aboard were lost, but there is no cover-up or conspiracy. Birds & aircrews are lost over the side in peacetime & wartime more often than the public realizes due to a variety of factors, the flight deck is hazardous!
This accident happned a couple of months before I got on the nimitz. We had a bad accident while I was on the Nimitz. Two sailors died in a huge explosion on the flight deck. We lost numerous aircraft during the explosion.
it probably took 3 days to "admit the accident" because they searched for them 1st, and OH YA it was the fucking 80's, communication in the middle of the fucking ocean is difficult.
Im a journalist aboard the Nimitz now, we tell the truth to those that need to know...like...the family! not some dumbass news station like this looking for some dramatic bullshit story. this stuff happens, its part of the job, maybe if you film on a flight deck some time, you'll learn what REAL journalism is
I was proudly serving onboard Nimitz....No cover up....just a sad night... Plane sank so fast, no rescue could have been mounted. Its a sad thing.... R.I.P. shipmates.
It is kind of funny, this apparently was sooo secret that it was out in the public domain. The military published or at least did back then that was not classified that discussed all Class I, II, and III mishaps. This crash was in there in the Class I section (mishap resulting in loss of life or property in excess of one million dollars.)
Part 1: I worked Nimitz Arresting Gear when this happened. The pilot was given a choice whether to try another landing, or gain altitude & bail out. It was decided to try landing. (The A3's had a horrible rep for bail-out survivability, IIRC.) Also, our barricade was not high enough; we were missing an adapter to needed for final tensioning. Hand-cranking the barricade to final height is a cast iron bitch. Even though it was low, the pilot still came in too high. (To be continued...)
Part 2: I've talked to several high-ranking individuals who were closely involved in this situation over the years, and the general consensus is that it was pilot error. The reason no rescue crewmen were put into the water was that there was no movement on the plane, and the decision was made not to endanger rescue crewmen unless there was movement seen on the aircraft. The concern was that the plane would sink and take more people with it. (To be continued...)
Part 3: This decision (not to put rescue personnel in the water) was made after seeing what was in the debris left on the flight deck: apparently, there was major damage to the crew compartment. In the end, it was a horrible night for all of us. attaching a bunch of conspiracy theory to this incident does not honor the memory of the crew of Ranger 12. I'd say the speculation surrounding this incident just needs to be put to rest. (By the way, there is a memorial to the crew at Fort Meade.)
Media sucks. Sorry, but I've got 18 years in the army. Its dangerous and when you are training to kill, sometimes things happen. Soldiers are tired, overworked, stressed. I'd imagine the navy is no different.
In Naval Air bad things happen. This guy was having his night in the box. No one LIKES night traps. You don't just toss away airplanes if you can get back on board. Sure he was inexperienced but he went through two years of Flight training then about another in the RAG. I believe it to be pilot error. Not the flight deck crew or the barricade. Sure he asked for permission but when you are the pilot you can make the decision to go for altitude then punch out. Bad Night Bad Judgement.
First, the A-3 was an enormous aircraft for carrier operations. There would have been BAD things happen had it hit the barricade properly, which it did not. Second, no offence to the flightdeck crew that night, but that was a bad rigged barricade. I'm sure time was a factor with low fuel and such on the aircraft..... you could see that in even this poor video. Yes, 11 carrier flightdeck overseas deployments over 30 years, I know what I'm talking about.
@mgwilliams1000 i was there that night and you are right. We couldnt get the barricade rigged correctly due to a faulty motor. A thousand things went wrong.
@MrAshrak117 - The media is supposed to be nosey. Its their job and its all about balance. Again- I don't think we have any business knowing everything our government does, because if *I* know it some other asshole probably knows it and his intentions might not be favorable to my survival. We have enemies and its in our interest to snuff them first. I don't think we have a lot of friends on this planet and I'd as soon see us treat everyone as a potential threat.
I also worked as a report and in media for better than a decade.
I am also an American and of of this has some bearing on this 'story'.
First of all, not everything wich happens is 'newsworty'. Aircraft carriers are dangerous and landing anything on them is a marvel. People make mistakes,equipment fails and shit happens, but people,especially people, fail.
Frankly, I don't want to know everything my government does.
My comment on "something being wrong with the net" was just an observation. As any Aviator knows, accidents just don't happen". There are normally several circumstances that have to take place in order for the accident to happen. The missing piece of hardware was a contributing factor possibly. The media isn't interested in root cause, they just want to hold your attention long enough to show you the soap commercials.
If you watch the video closely you will see that the pilot failed to deploy the aircraft's speedbrakes during the approach. In all carrier landings, it is standard operating procedure to deploy the speedbrakes (if equipped...) during the approach, to increase engine spool up and allow quicker "wave off" response time and performance. Because Al's plane was so low on fuel he chose to disregard the speedbrakes and come in like a glider. Hince, the LSO's "CUT" calls had very little affect.
Yes the arresting barracade was improperly setup, it was missing a piece of hardware that would've raised the top horizontal strap another foot or so. Not sure if that would've made a difference. The pilot had a history of problems with his carrier landings. He had failed to "night qual" on the Kennedy a month before this incident. He was sent back to Rota to retrain and reattempt on the Nimitz as it was to replace the Kennedy on it's deployment rotation. Cause of accident, PILOT ERROR, period.
This is the biggest amount of BS I've ever seen. The media IS RETARDED. The pilot had more than enough training. Experience? Maybe not... but training, for sure. The only way you get experience is by DOING IT, the Navy had nothing to hide as it's not the Navy's fault...
Take a look at the net stretched across the deck to trap the aircraft. Something is wrong, the center isn't high enough to catch the aircraft So it slides over the net, down the deck and overboard. Looks as if it was set up wrong or missing something yet no one has said anything about it. So much for "investigative reporting".
@Gundog55 Sag is normal and unavoidable, check out power lines the next time you see them. A properly executed emergency landing would have seen the airplane firmly on the deck and low enough to hit the net nose into the center, well before contact. The pilot came in too hot, and too high, and the aircraft was still airborne when it hit the net. Those nets are not designed to catch airborne aircraft, they are designed to slow rolling aircraft that have landed to a stop.
In my eyes, pilots that can land their jetaircraft on carriers, day or night, really have excellent skills. I for one definately would not be able to do that. But as this vid shows, it does not go well always. Do you think the new Joint Strike Fighter will be a lot easier to land on a carrier?
p.s. i was told that the nose broke off as she hit the water..more than likely the crew cabin was flooded as she floated with empty fuel tanks..all i can hope is that they were knocked out when they hit the water and did not suffer..another point to make is that levines reqst to divert was denied and he was given a direct order "YOU WILL LAND THAT PLANE ABOARD THIS SHIP"..as far as im concerned the CO is who killed my friends, not levine..
i was in vq2 83-85..i knew Herzing..while i was at vq2 we had a similar incident in which one of our whales made 5 perfect passes,yet boltered 5 times and had to divert to sigonella nas..it turned out to be a broken tailhook hookpoint,which was not noticed during the 5 bolters..all these years ive wondered maybe the same could have happened to R12..there is no video of levines 5 previous attempts to trap..just that he always came in high.. he should have had a chance at #4 wire with a good hook
@mishman363 I was in CATCC that night in 1987. It was my first anniversary in the Navy. Each of his 5 passes were too high and fast for the 4 wire. I only recall one hook skip on the 4 wire but all the rest were just too high. He did not have enough fuel to make it to NAS Sig. The KA-6 tanker was a sour tanker and after he chased it and received no fuel I seem to recall his fuel state was 1.5 (Just from memory) I could be wrong about the exact amount.
@Kumacho1957 it's good that first hand accounts are posted here. I was on the other EA-3B crew on the Nimitz that day as I watched in horror via CCTV. Not much can be done when the overriding factor is pilot error.
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First of all this shit doesn't belong on TV for the civilian media to put their fuckin two cents in. They don't know anything about naval aviation operations so they have no grounds to form an opinion. Second, there is always a helo flying close to the ship during any kind of flight ops in case of an accident but that plane sank right away, no chance for survival. Third, I don't understand why a "rookie" pilot was assigned to fly the skywarrior in the first place.
The Skywarrior had no ejection seats and IIRC was never even retrofitted later on. For this reason the crews played on it's designation, A-3D, and created the backronym "All 3 Dead". Once it failed to trap and the wheel collapsed they knew they were screwed, and zero-zero ejection seats could have saved them. ALL fixed-wing carrier based platforms should have zero-zero ejection seats so crew might survive shit like this.
It is in the nature of tabloid "journalism" to hyperbolize normal incidents. In this case, there are untold videos of deck crashes, some replicated in movies from Hunt for Red October on. Nothing especially "controversial about this one.
I was there.I was in V4 div. we all threw our flashlights overboard to help the Helo in the search. The way it slid on deck that hatch had to be welded shut. No chance for those crew members.
how many times you media guys have to be told: a "spy-plane" is a reconnaissance plane void of national insignia during the mission. This EA-3B HAS national insignia on its fuselage - which means: it is NOT a "spy plane". Its an ESM/ECM platform. ESM for electronic support measures / ECM for electronic countermeasures (jamming). try to explain to people how things are - not how you want them to be.
this is bullshit, if the navy wanted them dead, they would have send an F-14 to finish the job, clearly you can see that they even put the rescue pad on the ship to save them. But it was the pilot's mistake to come in too high and too fast
Cover up? Oooooh, super top secret inspector gadget stuff eh? This is a "news" story? I have seen a thousand more videos that are much worse than this. What a joke.
They had a lot longer than 9 minutes. They already knew the plane was going to make a crash landing, so why weren't they prepared. Whey didn't they send up another tanker to refuel them and let them fly to shore. Why was the barricade missing a vital piece in the middle? Too many sorry excuses for this accident. The least they could have done was let him bail out over sea and been prepared to pick them up.
I was there.... watched the crash below deck on closed circuit - then felt the ship hit the plane while it was in the water (a back-emergency bell was issued but it takes quite a bit to stop a 98,000 ton carrier). We ran up to the hangar deck and watched through the hangar bay doors - we were 80 - 100 feet away from the plane....
remember being amazed at how long it stayed afloat (close to 10 min).... copter hovered just above the plane - frogman was suspended just above the plane from a cable on the copter.. we were waiting for them to eother latch onto the plane with a cable or place floatation devices under the wings, nose & tail (none of us were sure if these were viable options - just made sense at the time)....
remember being very frustated that nothing was being done after about 5 min. Then - when the plane started to sink people got uptight (there was a few hundred of us up there on the hangar deck - port side rear hangar bay door).... it was very very surreal - was this really happening? then - as the plane disappeared below the water - reality started to sink in and we were asking each other wtf is going on???
stayed up there for a long time just staring at the water.... then went down to berthing where people had videtaped the crash and were analyzing it bit by bit.... all berthing spaces had a TV - the nimitz had a few closed-circuit channels that montred the flight deck and some satelite digital data (lat, long, etc...) we had a vcr hooked up to ours and thus had the ability to record the incident - i'm sure we were not the only ones with a tape.... i never knew this was available until now...
it appeared we could have done something to rescue those guys - not sure if they were alive or not - but our skipper - Capt Connor - had things under control.... I want to think that if our frogmen didn't go in the water - it wasn't because they didn't want to or the skipper didn't want them to - it was because there was too much risk involved to rescue a crew that was mangled beyond recognition.... hard copy had no business revisiting this - there was no benefit to anyone......
I was there. Early 1987 we were in the middle of a world cruise. I watched it live on closed circuit tv from my workshop. The ship did a sharp turn and never looked back. I'll never forget.
What scandal? The pilot would never have been assigned to that mission had he not been qualified. It's possible for any carrier pilot to choke. Carrier aviators are the most highly trained aviators in the world but all the training in the world is for nought if you lose your nerve. Some families will never be convinced that a military accident is just that, an accident, especially if a loved one is ruled to be at fault. It's a slow news day when the media make up stories out of thin air.
One more reason not to watch the trash on TV. Although the video is interesting to most people, there is no sort of coverup when these things happen. We went most of one med cruise without a mishap then lost 5 planes in a day, iirc. I saw what was left of one pilot when a launch went awry. It's a tough business to be in people but a damned good one.
No story here, everyday occurence at sea. Why no rescue attempt? Carrier doing 12 knots at night....do the math. Everytime a Carrier Battle Group went to sea some of those guys you know werent coming back.
I was one of the flight deck crew to run to the side and watch as the plane bobbed around for a few minutes as the speed of the ship passed it by. I can only presume that the rescue folks did not jump into the water from the helo due to position of plane. If I recall, the canopy was under water while only the rear of aircraft remained above surface. Also, this was nighttime with poor visibility at best. This aircraft was the worst on the ship...nicknamed the Whale due to size and lack of grace.
It's not that this stuff gets "covered up". It is just not always a wide sprad news story when it happens. It's the military, it's part of the job. We just lost a SH-60 helo last month (May 09) while we were at sea on NIMITZ and 5 aircrew members died. The only news that reported it in length were the local news networks. I have been part of a few aircraft losses at sea. We ALWAYS look for the aircrew. No one is ever just lost at sea with no atempt to find them.
I'm confused by this. How is this being called a cover up? My dad heard about this in 1988...one year after the incident happened. He still has the photo from the local Newspaper. And then when I joined the Navy, they showed us this video when I was being trained to work on the flight deck.
Im wondering when the Media will stop lieing to the citizens, if the Landing gear didnt kill the crew by crashing through the plane, it woulda sank to fast for the crew to get out
"Scandals" are created when the media wants more viewers. Whoever made the comment below that everyone on the ship knew about it was right. The Navy could not have completely covered this up
what the fuck are you talking about, there is no scandal you stupid fuck, its an accident in which people question if the right decisions were made, not a scandal
wow, hypocrite, you have no more valid sources than anyone else but you'll sit there and try to tell me that I'm merely educated by popular media. Yea I'll listen to you because you clearly have devine knowledge. You hear the same shit as everyone else smartass, just because some stupid fucking liberal icon in your pitiful life put an interesting twist on a story doesn't make it true
im sorry mate all i know is that saddam had no weapons and that the west bank was shred to pieces and nobody got blamed apart from the hamas missile throwers .. only they are a terrorist group.
you dont need the media to tell you whats going on in the world...JUST COMMON SENSE
sure maybe we went after saddam for the wrong reasons or maybe even made up reasons but holy shit its not something to be ashamed of. israel and muslims will go back and forth for a long time to come just as they have been. there is no justice there, both have certainly killed civilians. the US takes sides that are most favorable, gotta be on one or the other, israel is the better choice and the other guy gets called a terrorist, thats the way it is. its a fucked up world, i wont argue that
A few of the comments come from witnesses on board Nimitz, so I have no reason to doubt them or any other person who has commented on this. I have questions not addressed, The EA3B and variants were all supposed to have been retired in 1991. This is 1995, so the mission is in question. But, given the "Whale"'s size and speed, a spy mission over Libya? We had much faster, more sophisticated a/c for these purposes. Also, I can't make out the ECM pod on this particular EA3. Can anyone else?
he was training in a common navy exercise called "night caps'' or night captures. In lay mans terms they were using EA3B's for training pilots to land on carriers in day and night time exercises. Now days they use the T-45 Goshawk. And that wasn't an ECM pod it was one of the jet's turbine engines. They were mostly a recon and strategic bomber type aircraft . After 91 they were used as tankers, electronic warfare platforms, and to train F-14 pilots.
Al Levine was my roomate at Pensacola Naval air station, he was no rookie and gruaduated at the top of his class, and was a brilliant math major from Hofstra university, he was one of the top guys during officer candidate school and flight school. It is sad the Navy deployed the landing incorrectly and the CO did his best to cover it up. His grades were high enough to fly fighters but he was forced to fly the A3. He experienced a night in the barrell instead.
I wonder how long that plane had to stay in the air to complete it's mission? If the pilot was a rookie at night landings he could have come back to the ship too physically and mentally exhausted to make one, after a couple of "bolters".
The crew should have been given the chance to choose between deck landing, water ditching, bail out, or even a possible beach bingo if refueling by boom was possible. Does not this plane have a refueling probe???
Although I find it odd that the incident doesn't show up on the Nimitz site I remember watchin it that night from our birthing. The plane hit the deck hard, the landing gear folded into most of the personnel space, and there was no way of knowing how long it would stay afloat. With no indication anyone survived the impact I think the right decision was made, and I have never been the Navys biggest supporter!
I remember this, I was aboard the Nimitz just getting off watch down in D.C. centrail, and from first hand, EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING WAS DONE TO SAVE THOSE MEN WITH OUT PUTTING MORE MEN AT RISK! 9min's a float is not that long when you have to get a chopper and a crew up in the air. about time that chopper showed up that plane was going under, it started to plunge nose first and down she went. it was a sad day aboard the Nimitz and talked about for weeks. 5000 people seen it, there was no cover.
It was not worth killing more people to enter a sinking aircraft at night. If the crew was OK, they are trained on emergency egress. If they were already dead, we mourn their loss. It's easy to second guess 8 -10 years after the fact. The hard thing to do is make the right call when lives are on the line. In hind-sight, I think the right call was made not to put the divers into that sinking aircraft. No one wanted those sailors to survive more than their ship-mates.
Hard Copy was able to reach ALL seven of the families before the segments aired; the final family was contacted just before the show went on air. All were immensely relieved to know what happened to their loved ones.
My name is Jeff Wiget.I just want to make it clear that I was not a naval OFFICER.I was a PETTY OFFICER (AW2).I never claimed to be an officer.Hard Copy made a mistake when they announced that I was. However, as far as I know, the rest of their coverage of this event was correct. Accidents happen in military. They come with the environment. People are killed and kill.This is the nature of the beast.The only shameful aspect of this accident was that the families and shipmates were told lies.
What a fucking joke. Media sensationalizing things once again for a fucking ratings boost.
suraxis 3 weeks ago
" Accident cover up " what a joke. I wonder how many A-3's were put in the drink and aircrews lost with this aircraft from the 1950's to the end of it's flying career with the U.S. Navy. Too many and too long to list. This was just a bad luck operational night for the Nimitz back in Jan 1987. Period. Hard Copy was a tabloid t.v. show that made rating by trying to sensationalize stories such as this.
ccblack1 1 month ago
Screw trying to make a decent landing. Just put the damn thing into the barrier !! I read about an incident similar to this, an A-3 was having trouble getting aboard a carrier, and the order was given to abort further landing attempts, climb to altitude and for the crew to bail out. The crew made it out okay and was eventually rescued. But the A-3 didn't crash into the sea right away ( It finally did though ) It started circling and everyone was afraid it would crash into the ship. True story
ccblack1 1 month ago
Glad to see postings from those 'in the know', rather than armchair quarterback losers who have never worked around aircraft operations at all. My hat is off to all those who have done/still do this job.
BA31Driver 1 month ago
The A-3 is a big plane,when I was aboard the Ike as a hangar deck crewman,we called it a Whale. These aren't attached to the normal air wing,but are sent to the carrier after it gets to the operating area,Med.,Indian Ocean.So, these pilots don't get as many traps aboard the specific carrier as the rest of the air wing does.I heard that this bird was designed for delivering nuke weapons but has since been used for spy missions.What a terrible tragedy...that kind of thing will sap crew morale.
justinmichaeloakley 1 month ago
No ejection seat?
4NICK8TER1 1 month ago
@4NICK8TER1 no the plane was entered through doors rather than a canopy. the only way out is to bail out.
jacobdoerner20 1 month ago
Hard Copy, where hard hitting sensationalist journalism had a home.......
mobius1aic 1 month ago
wow what a crap story, yet they had no chance since this plane doesnt have ejection seats
Zeksteve 1 month ago
What amazing journalism, implying our soldiers and sailors and their officers are heartless automatons who won't help each other in times of emergency. Gods bless the USA where free speech grants even these idiots the right to voice their nonsense.
Debilitator47 2 months ago
wow! HARD COPY! Accidents happen...God bless the men who were involved.
soberdave1971 2 months ago
Hard Copy??? Really??? This is your hard hitting investigative journalism???? I was aboard the old Oriskany, CV-34 with VA-153...an A-7A/B outfit. This is NOTHING out of the unusual, unfortunately. A-3's have been taking the wire before the Nimitz was built!! They have an unnerving habit of hopping from main mount to main mount as they trap. Don't feed this bullshit with your bullshit hypothesis....
MadTarnsman 2 months ago
My first guess was that it was a J-5 Vigilante, but when I read the wiki article, USS Nimitz (CVN-68), it was listed as an EA-6B Prowler, the narration calls it an A-3 Skywarrior and that seems to be the most plausible. Ultimately the Navy did the same thing that it did with the Sullivan Brothers, Captain McVeigh, and Clayton Hartwig, they found someone to scapegoat by drug testing all the deceased deck crew even though the blame was definitely not theirs. This pilot was insufficiently trained.
Zyworski 2 months ago
@Zyworski I think you are talking about two seperate crashes. There was an earlier incident when an EA 6B plowed into the six pack at the front of the ship killing several flight deck crew. This incident was an A3 Whale that slid off the front of the ship wo hitting any other planes.
jacobdoerner20 1 month ago
@jacobdoerner20
the wiki article on the Nimitz mentions a prowler crash as you describe, but never mentions a Sky Warrior, but I think we can agree the plane in this video is a Sky Warrior. Further investigation puts the date of this crash on 1/25/87 and the Prowler crash on 5/26/81. I got the articles mixed up, but not the planes.
Zyworski 1 month ago
this is such bullshit. i was an EA-3B crew chief in VQ-1 at the time. i knew ron callendar. this wasnt covered up. it was a flight deck mishap just like hundreds before it. Hard Copy was such a BS show, thats why it's no longer on the air.
ERIELACKU34CH 3 months ago
God bless that crew, I had forgotten how terrible it was. We never talked about it
rraywood 3 months ago
are you kidding me? this was never Covered up. and a Carrier will not linger around for 3 days to search! job would be left to a Smaller ship.
Dogmeat1950 4 months ago
I was there and flew in that plane earlier in the day. I know what happened, why it happened, why they didn't bail out, etc. The Hard Copy account is mostly accurate. The tape was not hiding anything that the families already knew. Definitely pilot error and a series of errors in all the passes that the plane made before it crashed. I was there and it seems like it was yesterday. So sad for the families. For the seven who perished, God rest their souls. (former CT)
krypdicboy 4 months ago
Quote "The Navy called it.........Pilot error!" Well it was, he couldnt land it. What a sensational programme.
jimbo99ful 4 months ago
...some deep deep trouble. I am quite amazed that they kept it secret for so long and was amazed to finally see it on the television for all to see. None of the crew were recovered... terrible.......
mark44004 4 months ago
...and yes, it was icy cold waters in the Med during January. The plane bobbed about for a few minutes with it's tail sticking out of the water. Word has it that they crew could not escape because the hard landing on the deck damaged the escape hatches. In a matter of minutes the plane sank to the bottom of the Med. Terrible tragedy. Now the word went out that if anyone had a tape of that flight, they were to immediately hand it over or there would be a severe court marshall and you'd be in....
mark44004 4 months ago
...we were watching the flight ops that evening and every squadron at the time videotaped the flights. In the final pass, the A3 was to land face first into the net which was to envelop the aircraft and slow it down. The pilot freaked out and started to pull up thinking he could come back around and make it. What he did was he pulled up and ripped the front landing gear off which pulled the nose of the pane down into the flight deck. the plane slid along and went right off the ship...
mark44004 4 months ago
...an aircraft carrier. Ironically the escape hatches were on the bottom of the plane. There were 5 officers and 2 enlisted that flew in the plane. The pilot was called a "Greenie" because he was new to flying and landing on a flight deck. It's hard enough to land during the day but at night is it extremely diffiult as the ship pitches to and fro in the darkness, He made a couple passes and failed to grab the cable with its arresting hook, which slows down the plane during landing. ..
mark44004 4 months ago
I was on the Nimitz when this happened. I was attatched to E2C Hawkeye squadron VAW-124 and I worked in the maintenance shop with all the Cheifs and Officers in charge of our squadron during these night flight ops. I was the Aviation Storekeeper that night. Certainly HardCopy is a rag of a show but there is some truth to the story.
The aircraft is called the A3 and it is a spy plane. It's nickname for the plane was called "The Whale" because it was the largest aircraft you could land on board..
mark44004 4 months ago
I really hate journalists. "BREAKING NEWS", America spies on other countries. I am shocked to my core. What a bunch of morons.
zsiyw 5 months ago
someone tell these journalists to go for a dip here.
deimos2k6 5 months ago
Was the airplane's squadron VQ-2?
kondomonster 5 months ago
what bull shit ICY COLD WATER OF THE MED.. yeah shure more like the luke warm water of the med. Secret video tape...i dont think so the navy tapes all of the landings No secrets about it. where do they come up with this crap
RichardOhKaNoi 6 months ago
what bull shit ICY COLD WATER OF THE MED.. yeah shure more like the luke warm water of the med.
RichardOhKaNoi 6 months ago
Orders or no orders, I would've tired to get them out if I was one of those rescue guys on the heli.
xilix 6 months ago
im From Long Island and i can tell you beyond a dout that this wasn't covered up -_- matter of fact Ly Levien is named at the Suffulk county KIA memorial, listed as lost in a peace time accident. body un recovered after intense search
skilledwarman 7 months ago
What a load of horseshit. First of all Hard Copy was a crap tabloid program. Second, you don't do search and rescue with a Nimitz class carrier, that's what helos and frigates are for. Third, there was obviously a problem with the aircraft or they'd have tanked and tried to trap all night if they had too. Fourth, sink or float, if the crew doesn't make it out there's nothing you can do.
tmlafrance 7 months ago
No real reason to release for public viewing.WORSE is the over voice continually describing the pilot as rattled,sliding in a shower of sparks,etc. I would not want my next of kin to witness this, be asked questions,etc. It might be useful for pilot and flight deck training.THIS does not belong on Hard Copy and the Killed in this accident do not need to be named without expilicit desire from an affected family member.Before you comment against my post...I served on subs
midsizedwhiteboy 7 months ago
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spartan5536 7 months ago
I WAS ON THE nIMITZ FOR FOUR YEARS AND HAVE GONE THROUGH A HELO CRASHING AND 5 MEMBERS OF OUR CREW DIED
SexyAria25 8 months ago
The A-3D Skywarrior was the largest carrier-borne aircraft in the naval inventory, nicknamed "The Whale" by those of us in the flight deck crews. The plane itself is classified, along with its missions. It's sad the the Aircraft Commander wasn't experienced in night traps & all hands aboard were lost, but there is no cover-up or conspiracy. Birds & aircrews are lost over the side in peacetime & wartime more often than the public realizes due to a variety of factors, the flight deck is hazardous!
bladerunnerkw 8 months ago
This accident happned a couple of months before I got on the nimitz. We had a bad accident while I was on the Nimitz. Two sailors died in a huge explosion on the flight deck. We lost numerous aircraft during the explosion.
patrickacox 8 months ago
Equipment failure or pilot error?
phadil 9 months ago
it probably took 3 days to "admit the accident" because they searched for them 1st, and OH YA it was the fucking 80's, communication in the middle of the fucking ocean is difficult.
Im a journalist aboard the Nimitz now, we tell the truth to those that need to know...like...the family! not some dumbass news station like this looking for some dramatic bullshit story. this stuff happens, its part of the job, maybe if you film on a flight deck some time, you'll learn what REAL journalism is
RevinDay 9 months ago in playlist aircraft
Much ado about nothing & so typical of the media. EVERY pilot is a rookie at some time & make night landings as rookies !!!
drguffey 9 months ago
I was proudly serving onboard Nimitz....No cover up....just a sad night... Plane sank so fast, no rescue could have been mounted. Its a sad thing.... R.I.P. shipmates.
classictull1966 10 months ago
It is kind of funny, this apparently was sooo secret that it was out in the public domain. The military published or at least did back then that was not classified that discussed all Class I, II, and III mishaps. This crash was in there in the Class I section (mishap resulting in loss of life or property in excess of one million dollars.)
Robbob9933 10 months ago
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boodaddy3 10 months ago
Part 1: I worked Nimitz Arresting Gear when this happened. The pilot was given a choice whether to try another landing, or gain altitude & bail out. It was decided to try landing. (The A3's had a horrible rep for bail-out survivability, IIRC.) Also, our barricade was not high enough; we were missing an adapter to needed for final tensioning. Hand-cranking the barricade to final height is a cast iron bitch. Even though it was low, the pilot still came in too high. (To be continued...)
boodaddy3 10 months ago
@boodaddy3 Bail out? THat's funny. The plane is worth more than the muppet that was trying to fly it.
Nautilus1972 8 months ago
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boodaddy3 10 months ago
Part 2: I've talked to several high-ranking individuals who were closely involved in this situation over the years, and the general consensus is that it was pilot error. The reason no rescue crewmen were put into the water was that there was no movement on the plane, and the decision was made not to endanger rescue crewmen unless there was movement seen on the aircraft. The concern was that the plane would sink and take more people with it. (To be continued...)
boodaddy3 10 months ago
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boodaddy3 10 months ago
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boodaddy3 10 months ago
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Part 3: This decision (not to put rescue personnel in the water) was made after seeing what was in the debris left on the flight deck: apparently, there was major damage to the crew compartment. In the end, it was a horrible night for all of us. attaching a bunch of conspiracy theory to this incident does not honor the memory of the crew of Ranger 12. I'd say the speculation surrounding this incident just needs to be put to rest. (By the way, there is a memorial to the crew at Fort Meade.)
boodaddy3 10 months ago
I was there on the Deck V-4 Div , No cover up Just a bad night, Shit happens, R.I.P
dollardavekamber 11 months ago
Media sucks. Sorry, but I've got 18 years in the army. Its dangerous and when you are training to kill, sometimes things happen. Soldiers are tired, overworked, stressed. I'd imagine the navy is no different.
lionel21000 11 months ago
In Naval Air bad things happen. This guy was having his night in the box. No one LIKES night traps. You don't just toss away airplanes if you can get back on board. Sure he was inexperienced but he went through two years of Flight training then about another in the RAG. I believe it to be pilot error. Not the flight deck crew or the barricade. Sure he asked for permission but when you are the pilot you can make the decision to go for altitude then punch out. Bad Night Bad Judgement.
MUNSTERVFPLT 11 months ago
First, the A-3 was an enormous aircraft for carrier operations. There would have been BAD things happen had it hit the barricade properly, which it did not. Second, no offence to the flightdeck crew that night, but that was a bad rigged barricade. I'm sure time was a factor with low fuel and such on the aircraft..... you could see that in even this poor video. Yes, 11 carrier flightdeck overseas deployments over 30 years, I know what I'm talking about.
mgwilliams1000 11 months ago 6
@mgwilliams1000 i was there that night and you are right. We couldnt get the barricade rigged correctly due to a faulty motor. A thousand things went wrong.
jacobdoerner20 1 month ago
@MrAshrak117 - The media is supposed to be nosey. Its their job and its all about balance. Again- I don't think we have any business knowing everything our government does, because if *I* know it some other asshole probably knows it and his intentions might not be favorable to my survival. We have enemies and its in our interest to snuff them first. I don't think we have a lot of friends on this planet and I'd as soon see us treat everyone as a potential threat.
pumpernckle 1 year ago
I spen some time in the military.
I also worked as a report and in media for better than a decade.
I am also an American and of of this has some bearing on this 'story'.
First of all, not everything wich happens is 'newsworty'. Aircraft carriers are dangerous and landing anything on them is a marvel. People make mistakes,equipment fails and shit happens, but people,especially people, fail.
Frankly, I don't want to know everything my government does.
pumpernckle 1 year ago
My comment on "something being wrong with the net" was just an observation. As any Aviator knows, accidents just don't happen". There are normally several circumstances that have to take place in order for the accident to happen. The missing piece of hardware was a contributing factor possibly. The media isn't interested in root cause, they just want to hold your attention long enough to show you the soap commercials.
Gundog55 1 year ago
If you watch the video closely you will see that the pilot failed to deploy the aircraft's speedbrakes during the approach. In all carrier landings, it is standard operating procedure to deploy the speedbrakes (if equipped...) during the approach, to increase engine spool up and allow quicker "wave off" response time and performance. Because Al's plane was so low on fuel he chose to disregard the speedbrakes and come in like a glider. Hince, the LSO's "CUT" calls had very little affect.
xHamfistedx 1 year ago
Yes the arresting barracade was improperly setup, it was missing a piece of hardware that would've raised the top horizontal strap another foot or so. Not sure if that would've made a difference. The pilot had a history of problems with his carrier landings. He had failed to "night qual" on the Kennedy a month before this incident. He was sent back to Rota to retrain and reattempt on the Nimitz as it was to replace the Kennedy on it's deployment rotation. Cause of accident, PILOT ERROR, period.
xHamfistedx 1 year ago
that lil plane can fit 8 ppl?
Timb0NZ 1 year ago
This is the biggest amount of BS I've ever seen. The media IS RETARDED. The pilot had more than enough training. Experience? Maybe not... but training, for sure. The only way you get experience is by DOING IT, the Navy had nothing to hide as it's not the Navy's fault...
flysupertomcat1 1 year ago
Take a look at the net stretched across the deck to trap the aircraft. Something is wrong, the center isn't high enough to catch the aircraft So it slides over the net, down the deck and overboard. Looks as if it was set up wrong or missing something yet no one has said anything about it. So much for "investigative reporting".
Gundog55 1 year ago
@Gundog55 Sag is normal and unavoidable, check out power lines the next time you see them. A properly executed emergency landing would have seen the airplane firmly on the deck and low enough to hit the net nose into the center, well before contact. The pilot came in too hot, and too high, and the aircraft was still airborne when it hit the net. Those nets are not designed to catch airborne aircraft, they are designed to slow rolling aircraft that have landed to a stop.
n68188 1 year ago
In my eyes, pilots that can land their jetaircraft on carriers, day or night, really have excellent skills. I for one definately would not be able to do that. But as this vid shows, it does not go well always. Do you think the new Joint Strike Fighter will be a lot easier to land on a carrier?
Change6609 1 year ago
p.s. i was told that the nose broke off as she hit the water..more than likely the crew cabin was flooded as she floated with empty fuel tanks..all i can hope is that they were knocked out when they hit the water and did not suffer..another point to make is that levines reqst to divert was denied and he was given a direct order "YOU WILL LAND THAT PLANE ABOARD THIS SHIP"..as far as im concerned the CO is who killed my friends, not levine..
mishman363 1 year ago
i was in vq2 83-85..i knew Herzing..while i was at vq2 we had a similar incident in which one of our whales made 5 perfect passes,yet boltered 5 times and had to divert to sigonella nas..it turned out to be a broken tailhook hookpoint,which was not noticed during the 5 bolters..all these years ive wondered maybe the same could have happened to R12..there is no video of levines 5 previous attempts to trap..just that he always came in high.. he should have had a chance at #4 wire with a good hook
mishman363 1 year ago
@mishman363 I was in CATCC that night in 1987. It was my first anniversary in the Navy. Each of his 5 passes were too high and fast for the 4 wire. I only recall one hook skip on the 4 wire but all the rest were just too high. He did not have enough fuel to make it to NAS Sig. The KA-6 tanker was a sour tanker and after he chased it and received no fuel I seem to recall his fuel state was 1.5 (Just from memory) I could be wrong about the exact amount.
Kumacho1957 1 year ago 6
@Kumacho1957 it's good that first hand accounts are posted here. I was on the other EA-3B crew on the Nimitz that day as I watched in horror via CCTV. Not much can be done when the overriding factor is pilot error.
krypdicboy 4 months ago
"The icy cold waters of the Mediterreanen sea"
The Med isn't icy cold.
robert140602 1 year ago
Media should take their head out their ass sometime. Most spy planes do not carry USA insignia. Also they wouldn't of sent a "rookie" on spy mission.
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offertorycardiacml 1 year ago
First of all this shit doesn't belong on TV for the civilian media to put their fuckin two cents in. They don't know anything about naval aviation operations so they have no grounds to form an opinion. Second, there is always a helo flying close to the ship during any kind of flight ops in case of an accident but that plane sank right away, no chance for survival. Third, I don't understand why a "rookie" pilot was assigned to fly the skywarrior in the first place.
307OLDS 1 year ago
@307OLDS
it floated for over 9:00 minutes. That is not sinking right away. The Navy told the families it sank right away, but that is not true.
Dononcall 1 year ago
I'm sorry but the intro made me laugh @ the fact this was actually on TV
stangace20 1 year ago
Icey cold waters of the Med!!!! interesting
SPAD58 1 year ago
The rescue hatches are on the underside of this aircraft. A rescue attempt would have doomed more than the aircrew.
gwendolynstodd 1 year ago
Hard Copy is full of bullshit.
madisonelectronic 1 year ago 2
The Skywarrior had no ejection seats and IIRC was never even retrofitted later on. For this reason the crews played on it's designation, A-3D, and created the backronym "All 3 Dead". Once it failed to trap and the wheel collapsed they knew they were screwed, and zero-zero ejection seats could have saved them. ALL fixed-wing carrier based platforms should have zero-zero ejection seats so crew might survive shit like this.
samolet900 1 year ago
@samolet900 Hawkeyes and Greyhounds don't have ejection seats either.
307OLDS 1 year ago
@307OLDS I wonder how expensive it would be to install them. I would recommend putting that into the doctrine.
samolet900 1 year ago
It is in the nature of tabloid "journalism" to hyperbolize normal incidents. In this case, there are untold videos of deck crashes, some replicated in movies from Hunt for Red October on. Nothing especially "controversial about this one.
CRsBeem 1 year ago
I was there.I was in V4 div. we all threw our flashlights overboard to help the Helo in the search. The way it slid on deck that hatch had to be welded shut. No chance for those crew members.
stucat06 1 year ago
how many times you media guys have to be told: a "spy-plane" is a reconnaissance plane void of national insignia during the mission. This EA-3B HAS national insignia on its fuselage - which means: it is NOT a "spy plane". Its an ESM/ECM platform. ESM for electronic support measures / ECM for electronic countermeasures (jamming). try to explain to people how things are - not how you want them to be.
bradna01 1 year ago
Icy cold water of the Med ,you idiots, its warm, and accidents happen ya Knobs, Media full of shit,
AussieSAS0007 1 year ago
..icey cold waters of the Medeterrianian? really?
jacktheripped 1 year ago 3
@jacktheripped
I would love to take a dip in the 'icy cold' waters of the Med.
GasCityGuy 1 year ago
It's Hard Copy. 'Nuff said.
whichway103 1 year ago
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cluck2win 1 year ago
this is bullshit, if the navy wanted them dead, they would have send an F-14 to finish the job, clearly you can see that they even put the rescue pad on the ship to save them. But it was the pilot's mistake to come in too high and too fast
lexlov250 1 year ago
Cover up? Oooooh, super top secret inspector gadget stuff eh? This is a "news" story? I have seen a thousand more videos that are much worse than this. What a joke.
gregstreuber 1 year ago
This is the risk of the profesion. RIP all of the pilots died.
MrAbsurde 1 year ago
19 times they soed that video. I've not seen the moon landing so many times.
B17MIKE 1 year ago
They had a lot longer than 9 minutes. They already knew the plane was going to make a crash landing, so why weren't they prepared. Whey didn't they send up another tanker to refuel them and let them fly to shore. Why was the barricade missing a vital piece in the middle? Too many sorry excuses for this accident. The least they could have done was let him bail out over sea and been prepared to pick them up.
zthang 2 years ago
Listen how this idiot talks about '9 minutes' as if that's just plenty of time to drop in cold wild ocean and save people.
robi2000 2 years ago
WTF R U DOIN' watching hardcopy turdboy?
Indogyearsimdead 2 years ago
cover up my ass...in '87 i was stationed at ft. benning and distinctly remember my buddy tellin me about it over lunch the next day
camarorider67 2 years ago
Mediterranean waters are icy? I don't think so.
r32adt3db 2 years ago 3
@r32adt3db It´s outside USA, how could they know?
bruno84 6 months ago
I was there.... watched the crash below deck on closed circuit - then felt the ship hit the plane while it was in the water (a back-emergency bell was issued but it takes quite a bit to stop a 98,000 ton carrier). We ran up to the hangar deck and watched through the hangar bay doors - we were 80 - 100 feet away from the plane....
phuubar 2 years ago
remember being amazed at how long it stayed afloat (close to 10 min).... copter hovered just above the plane - frogman was suspended just above the plane from a cable on the copter.. we were waiting for them to eother latch onto the plane with a cable or place floatation devices under the wings, nose & tail (none of us were sure if these were viable options - just made sense at the time)....
phuubar 2 years ago
remember being very frustated that nothing was being done after about 5 min. Then - when the plane started to sink people got uptight (there was a few hundred of us up there on the hangar deck - port side rear hangar bay door).... it was very very surreal - was this really happening? then - as the plane disappeared below the water - reality started to sink in and we were asking each other wtf is going on???
phuubar 2 years ago
stayed up there for a long time just staring at the water.... then went down to berthing where people had videtaped the crash and were analyzing it bit by bit.... all berthing spaces had a TV - the nimitz had a few closed-circuit channels that montred the flight deck and some satelite digital data (lat, long, etc...) we had a vcr hooked up to ours and thus had the ability to record the incident - i'm sure we were not the only ones with a tape.... i never knew this was available until now...
phuubar 2 years ago
it appeared we could have done something to rescue those guys - not sure if they were alive or not - but our skipper - Capt Connor - had things under control.... I want to think that if our frogmen didn't go in the water - it wasn't because they didn't want to or the skipper didn't want them to - it was because there was too much risk involved to rescue a crew that was mangled beyond recognition.... hard copy had no business revisiting this - there was no benefit to anyone......
phuubar 2 years ago
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phuubar 2 years ago
why would they cover it up
713TexanVet 2 years ago
'The video the Navy doesn't want you to see'?
Then how did you GET it?
I was an F-14A plane captain with VF213 onboard the USS Enterprise and the USS America.
Accidents like this were frequent and loss of life was too often the result.
There's no reason for the Navy to conceal this accident or any other.
Miscommunication or failures in notification protocols are also not unheard of.
'Hard Copy' is manufacturing a scandal where none exists.
In short, this is total BULLSHIT.
ironhorzmn 2 years ago
I was there. Early 1987 we were in the middle of a world cruise. I watched it live on closed circuit tv from my workshop. The ship did a sharp turn and never looked back. I'll never forget.
rodspear 2 years ago
I wonder why nobody gets upset about your government lying to you again.
It fears me, that you dont care, what your own government is doing (to his own soldiers)..
dunjak111 2 years ago 2
They must have really been hard up for some news esp if the crash was already a decade old.
mcrazy11 2 years ago
HA! talk about guardian angels i was scheduled to ship on the Nimitz, mos - HEO on route to Wainemai.
wanshei 2 years ago
... and plunges into the icy cold waters of the Mediterranean ....
One can swim in the Med, even in winter, done it.
zonzeven 2 years ago
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rippersrule 11 months ago
sad shit
Emman498 2 years ago
My understanding is that we are the only navy in teh world that does carrier landings at night. Navy pilots r the best
applianceemt 2 years ago
lol! "icy" cold of the med! LOL!
funkiestmonkeyIRL 2 years ago
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rippersrule 11 months ago
What scandal? The pilot would never have been assigned to that mission had he not been qualified. It's possible for any carrier pilot to choke. Carrier aviators are the most highly trained aviators in the world but all the training in the world is for nought if you lose your nerve. Some families will never be convinced that a military accident is just that, an accident, especially if a loved one is ruled to be at fault. It's a slow news day when the media make up stories out of thin air.
pennie59 2 years ago 2
Hahaha americans are so funny.
Exagerative 2 years ago
One more reason not to watch the trash on TV. Although the video is interesting to most people, there is no sort of coverup when these things happen. We went most of one med cruise without a mishap then lost 5 planes in a day, iirc. I saw what was left of one pilot when a launch went awry. It's a tough business to be in people but a damned good one.
Zboots 2 years ago
Did they use the soundtrack from "A Few Good Men"?
westxlcr 2 years ago
Yes, that's the score from "A Few Good Men".
cranegaroo 2 years ago
No story here, everyday occurence at sea. Why no rescue attempt? Carrier doing 12 knots at night....do the math. Everytime a Carrier Battle Group went to sea some of those guys you know werent coming back.
jcerreta1 2 years ago
I was one of the flight deck crew to run to the side and watch as the plane bobbed around for a few minutes as the speed of the ship passed it by. I can only presume that the rescue folks did not jump into the water from the helo due to position of plane. If I recall, the canopy was under water while only the rear of aircraft remained above surface. Also, this was nighttime with poor visibility at best. This aircraft was the worst on the ship...nicknamed the Whale due to size and lack of grace.
zsoltaa 2 years ago
why this was not shown,so terrorest cant see
78720 2 years ago
the poor kid had little to no experience at night they said. He caved under pressure =( This is sad
lolermanche 2 years ago
the media is retarted
SkullKing11841 2 years ago 30
@SkullKing11841 Yes, i fucking hate the media! It seem to cause more problems than good. sometimes i wonder if freedom of press is a good thing.
MrAshrak117 1 year ago
@SkullKing11841 retarded
SPAD58 1 year ago
It's not that this stuff gets "covered up". It is just not always a wide sprad news story when it happens. It's the military, it's part of the job. We just lost a SH-60 helo last month (May 09) while we were at sea on NIMITZ and 5 aircrew members died. The only news that reported it in length were the local news networks. I have been part of a few aircraft losses at sea. We ALWAYS look for the aircrew. No one is ever just lost at sea with no atempt to find them.
laxflyer2000 2 years ago 30
I saw this in flight training and ground school. Don't see how its all "covered up". Stupid media
xDelta1125x 2 years ago 3
I'm confused by this. How is this being called a cover up? My dad heard about this in 1988...one year after the incident happened. He still has the photo from the local Newspaper. And then when I joined the Navy, they showed us this video when I was being trained to work on the flight deck.
thelastkicker 2 years ago 2
Exactly. People are silly and want drama where ever they can find it.
jjchb2008 2 years ago
Im wondering when the Media will stop lieing to the citizens, if the Landing gear didnt kill the crew by crashing through the plane, it woulda sank to fast for the crew to get out
HUNDLEYGUY95 2 years ago
"Scandals" are created when the media wants more viewers. Whoever made the comment below that everyone on the ship knew about it was right. The Navy could not have completely covered this up
robertsj12 2 years ago 3
no scandals are what you keep denying you cunt
MalteSer001 2 years ago
what the fuck are you talking about, there is no scandal you stupid fuck, its an accident in which people question if the right decisions were made, not a scandal
robertsj12 2 years ago
whatever you see against the usa is either middle eastern propoganda a lie or some "we cannot discuss matters right now cause they have wmds"
but then faux news is real and we all should believe it right??? the un's statement against israel was "biased"
BIASED?? fucken hell they destroyed half a city and they still need to bullshit and lie about it....THATS A SCANDAL YOU KNOB ESSENCE
MalteSer001 2 years ago
wow, hypocrite, you have no more valid sources than anyone else but you'll sit there and try to tell me that I'm merely educated by popular media. Yea I'll listen to you because you clearly have devine knowledge. You hear the same shit as everyone else smartass, just because some stupid fucking liberal icon in your pitiful life put an interesting twist on a story doesn't make it true
robertsj12 2 years ago
im sorry mate all i know is that saddam had no weapons and that the west bank was shred to pieces and nobody got blamed apart from the hamas missile throwers .. only they are a terrorist group.
you dont need the media to tell you whats going on in the world...JUST COMMON SENSE
MalteSer001 2 years ago
sure maybe we went after saddam for the wrong reasons or maybe even made up reasons but holy shit its not something to be ashamed of. israel and muslims will go back and forth for a long time to come just as they have been. there is no justice there, both have certainly killed civilians. the US takes sides that are most favorable, gotta be on one or the other, israel is the better choice and the other guy gets called a terrorist, thats the way it is. its a fucked up world, i wont argue that
robertsj12 2 years ago
A few of the comments come from witnesses on board Nimitz, so I have no reason to doubt them or any other person who has commented on this. I have questions not addressed, The EA3B and variants were all supposed to have been retired in 1991. This is 1995, so the mission is in question. But, given the "Whale"'s size and speed, a spy mission over Libya? We had much faster, more sophisticated a/c for these purposes. Also, I can't make out the ECM pod on this particular EA3. Can anyone else?
vondumozze 2 years ago
he was training in a common navy exercise called "night caps'' or night captures. In lay mans terms they were using EA3B's for training pilots to land on carriers in day and night time exercises. Now days they use the T-45 Goshawk. And that wasn't an ECM pod it was one of the jet's turbine engines. They were mostly a recon and strategic bomber type aircraft . After 91 they were used as tankers, electronic warfare platforms, and to train F-14 pilots.
xDelta1125x 2 years ago
Al Levine was my roomate at Pensacola Naval air station, he was no rookie and gruaduated at the top of his class, and was a brilliant math major from Hofstra university, he was one of the top guys during officer candidate school and flight school. It is sad the Navy deployed the landing incorrectly and the CO did his best to cover it up. His grades were high enough to fly fighters but he was forced to fly the A3. He experienced a night in the barrell instead.
charlougas 2 years ago
I wonder how long that plane had to stay in the air to complete it's mission? If the pilot was a rookie at night landings he could have come back to the ship too physically and mentally exhausted to make one, after a couple of "bolters".
The crew should have been given the chance to choose between deck landing, water ditching, bail out, or even a possible beach bingo if refueling by boom was possible. Does not this plane have a refueling probe???
wagle88 2 years ago
Although I find it odd that the incident doesn't show up on the Nimitz site I remember watchin it that night from our birthing. The plane hit the deck hard, the landing gear folded into most of the personnel space, and there was no way of knowing how long it would stay afloat. With no indication anyone survived the impact I think the right decision was made, and I have never been the Navys biggest supporter!
lastgypc 3 years ago
Yeah. They died.
Sakke0Mac 3 years ago
they died?
boeah1984 3 years ago
I'm on the Nimitz now and was never aware such an incident has happened. So sad and scary at the same time.
drewske1984 3 years ago
I remember this, I was aboard the Nimitz just getting off watch down in D.C. centrail, and from first hand, EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING WAS DONE TO SAVE THOSE MEN WITH OUT PUTTING MORE MEN AT RISK! 9min's a float is not that long when you have to get a chopper and a crew up in the air. about time that chopper showed up that plane was going under, it started to plunge nose first and down she went. it was a sad day aboard the Nimitz and talked about for weeks. 5000 people seen it, there was no cover.
cwillotree3 3 years ago
I was there too watched is sink halplessly from the aft sparrow sponson
revnstpaul 3 years ago
It was not worth killing more people to enter a sinking aircraft at night. If the crew was OK, they are trained on emergency egress. If they were already dead, we mourn their loss. It's easy to second guess 8 -10 years after the fact. The hard thing to do is make the right call when lives are on the line. In hind-sight, I think the right call was made not to put the divers into that sinking aircraft. No one wanted those sailors to survive more than their ship-mates.
mthomas999 3 years ago
Hard Copy was able to reach ALL seven of the families before the segments aired; the final family was contacted just before the show went on air. All were immensely relieved to know what happened to their loved ones.
Kristina Rebelo, Producer
BeachPretzel 3 years ago
My name is Jeff Wiget.I just want to make it clear that I was not a naval OFFICER.I was a PETTY OFFICER (AW2).I never claimed to be an officer.Hard Copy made a mistake when they announced that I was. However, as far as I know, the rest of their coverage of this event was correct. Accidents happen in military. They come with the environment. People are killed and kill.This is the nature of the beast.The only shameful aspect of this accident was that the families and shipmates were told lies.
portsmouthXchick 3 years ago 2