McCain prone to mishaps as Navy pilot: report

[Bozita]

Source: AFP

McCain prone to mishaps as Navy pilot: report

AFP
Published: Monday October 6, 2008


US presidential hopeful John McCain was prone to mistakes during his time as a Navy pilot, and if today's standards were applied, his career may have ended in a hard landing, according to a report Monday by The Los Angeles Times.

The newspaper said that when McCain was training in his AD-6 Skyraider in Texas in 1960, he slammed into Corpus Christi Bay and sheared the skin off his plane's wings. In his autobiography, McCain said the crash had occurred because "the engine quit," but an investigation board at the Naval Aviation Safety Center found no evidence of engine failure, the report said.

Instead investigators concluded that the 23-year-old junior lieutenant was not paying attention and erred in using "a power setting too low to maintain level flight in a turn."

The crash was one of three early in McCain's aviation career in which his flying skills and judgment were faulted or questioned by Navy officials, The Times said.

Read more: http://rawstory.com/news/afp/McCain_prone_to_mishaps_as_Navy_pil_10062008.html

[Betsy Ross]

1. Read full career history in Rolling Stone.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain

[Bigmack]

5. This article (in the Stone) is

EXCELLENT. It should be national "required" reading. Ms Bigmack

[silverojo]

12. PLEASE, start a thread with a link to that article

This is too important to be buried in another thread. Thank you!

[leftchick]

23. "a mean little fucker."

that is him all right! Great article.

[Bozita]

33. That's MUST READ stuff! Thanks for the link.

[crossroads]

39. Excellent follow up link Betsy Ross! Amazing article...

A man so full of himself should not even be on a serious ticket imo! What an ass hole he has always been!
CR

[BearSquirrel2]

2. He lost 5 aircraft ...

He lost 5 aircraft, but unlike Bush at least he had the balls to go into combat.

[LiberalFighter]

6. It wasn't about having the balls. It was about trying to jump start his career cause it was flagging

[atreides1]

10. He didn't even deserve to be in the cockpit

Hell if it wasn't for his father's connections he would have been expelled from the Naval Academy, besides his place in his graduating class only qualified him to be a ships's laundry and morale officer, if that.

[damntexdem]

31. Hmm, I can't see him helping morale. And he sure has a lot a dirty laundry.

No, I don't think he was qualified for laundry and morale, either. ;-)

[Tutonic]

3. Thats what happens when you graduate at teh bottom of your class.

He should have been washing jet windows instead of flying jets.

[Hand]

8. Unless, of course...

...you're the son and grandson of admirals. :grr:

[stillcool]

4. A history of poor judgment...

[LiberalFighter]

7. I don't think it was a matter of today's standards.

He would had been drummed out back then too except for the fact his daddy was the Admiral.

[Shipwack]

9. Agreed, LiberalFighter...

I also have no doubt that in today's Navy He'd also be able to stay in, because of his father's and grandfather's rank...

[Bozita]

11. Here's the LAT article referred to in the OP

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-aviator6-2008oct06,0,1970969,full.story

Mishaps mark John McCain's record as naval aviator
Three crashes early in his career led Navy officials to question or fault his judgment.

By Ralph Vartabedian and Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
October 6, 2008

John McCain was training in his AD-6 Skyraider on an overcast Texas morning in 1960 when he slammed into Corpus Christi Bay and sheared the skin off his plane's wings.

McCain recounted the accident decades later in his autobiography. "The engine quit while I was practicing landings," he wrote. But an investigation board at the Naval Aviation Safety Center found no evidence of engine failure.

The 23-year-old junior lieutenant wasn't paying attention and erred in using "a power setting too low to maintain level flight in a turn," investigators concluded.

The crash was one of three early in McCain's aviation career in which his flying skills and judgment were faulted or questioned by Navy officials.

In his most serious lapse, McCain was "clowning" around in a Skyraider over southern Spain about December 1961 and flew into electrical wires, causing a blackout, according to McCain's own account as well as those of naval officers and enlistees aboard the carrier Intrepid. In another incident, in 1965, McCain crashed a T-2 trainer jet in Virginia.

more...

[skyounkin]

13. Wasn't this already posted here?

Last time the thread vanished......

[HillbillyBob]

14. He had worse luck on the Forrestal

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/histories/cv59-forrestal/cv59-forrestal.html

I served for a time aboard a nuke Carrier.
We were shown film from this conflagration, I still have a phobia of fires, really
The link goes to a page that is text and a photos.
We were shown a fire training film.
The film was titled "Remember the Forrestal" The film had actually been edited out of the cameras that were on the ship, everyday recording went on all the time.
I did not even finish reading it again.
I don't remember exactly how it went, but it seems to me the bomb fell off of McCains Plane.
Shoot its been almost 30 years.
There were some real heroes aboard that day. You just cannot imagine what a fire on a ship can be like, fuel, bombs, small spaces. If the lights are out you are in a bad way.

In June 1967, Forrestal departed Norfolk for duty in waters off Vietnam. As the huge ship cut a wake through the calm waters of the Gulf of Tonkin on 29 July 1967, the hot, tropical sun beat down from a clear sky. Forrestal had been launching aircraft from her flight deck on strikes against an enemy whose coastline was only a few miles over the horizon. For four days, the planes of Attack Carrier Air Wing 17 had been launched on, and recovered from, about 150 missions against targets in North Vietnam. On the ship's four-acre flight deck, her crewmen went about the business at hand, the business of accomplishing the second launch of the fifth day in combat.
snip
Aftermath of the fire aboard Forrestal
It was just about 10:50 a.m. (local time). The launch that was scheduled for a short time later was never made. Lt. Cmdr. John S. McCain III, later a prisoner of war in Vietnam and still later U.S. Senator from Arizona, said later he heard a "whooshy" sound then a "low-order explosion" in front of him. Suddenly, two A-4s ahead of his plane were engulfed in flaming jet fuel — JP-5 — spewed from them. A bomb dropped to the deck and rolled about six feet and came to rest in a pool of burning fuel.
snip
The awful conflagration, which was to leave 132 Forrestal crewmen dead, 62 more injured and two missing and presumed dead, had begun. The entire nation felt the tragedy, and Life magazine reported that "in five minutes, everyone became a man." The ship returned to Norfolk for extensive repairs.

Forrestal deployed to Mediterranean waters four time between 1968 and 1973, she sped to Tunisia for rescue operations in the flooded Medjerda River Valley near Tunis.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain

[happyslug]

37. From what I have read, it was a rocket from a F-4 that hit the A-4 NEXT to McCain's A-4

Except for his plane being next to the plane hit, McCain was NOT involved (Both planes were getting ready to takeoff but never had the chance). The Fire itself can be read on Wikipedia (Again it points out a Rocket, being carried by a F-4 Phantom, went off hitting the A-4 NEXT to McCain's, McCain was able to get out of his A-4, but that was the extent of his involvement). The General Consensus is the rocket hit the place NEXT to McCain's A-4, but it is possible the Rocket hit his. For more see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire

McCain's involvement:
"With his aircraft surrounded by flames, McCain escaped by climbing out of the cockpit, walking down the nose and jumping off the refueling probe"

Forestall Video:
http://www.truveo.com/USS-Forestal-Mishap-July-29-1967/id/4260732662
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/uss-forestal-mishap-july-29-1967/4260732662

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

15. Yeah, today it would happen... but not

if your Daddy was CINCPAC... and it would not happen today to CINCPAC's son or daughter either.

[dakdirty]

16. What a disaster...

It's almost incomprehensible that a man with this type of history, this pattern of behavior, coupled with the fact that the man has never gained anything that was not a product of nepotism, cronyism, or corruption, feels that he is not only fit to serve as President, but almost entitled. The man shows clear signs of having some type of antisocial disorder; a complete fucking nut-job.

[defendandprotect]

17. Amazingly like Bush history in many ways ---

arrogantly leaving a wake of destruction ---

[DallasNE]

18. Let's Not Go Down This Path

While I don't doubt that this is part of the record I think that McCain has already paid a heavy price for his youthful indiscretions so this is an unwise path to go down.

[TomInTib]

21. I agree...

Kinda like LittleMan

And cocaine

And abortion

And DUI

And AWOL

We should really let it ride

[fujiyama]

22. What path is that?

I think it's fair to look at his history of recklessness and rash judgment.

His recent behavior is evident. I think the guy is emotionally unstable and I don't even think it has anything to do with him being a POW. Even otherwise, he has a VERY short fuse. No one is questioning his military record. That's clear for everyone to see. He wasn't a very good pilot for one.

Yes, he did undergo a horrible time in the Hanoi Hilton, but that doesn't automatically make him fit to be CiC.

[Enrique]

24. this is a news article

there's no way in hell Obama is going to try to use this, but what's wrong with us knowing this?

[bdab1973]

27. I agree...not to defend, but...

When I was younger and flew for the Army, I had several mentors that had flown in Vietnam. Each of them had crashed helicopters on different occasions. Flying drunk, while officially against the rules, was tolerated. You could smoke while flying the aircraft and many aircraft had ashtrays.

I have heard the stories from many retired USAF pilots that flew back in the 1960s...all of them had stories of running their airplanes out of gas while in the landing pattern and wiping the sweat off their brow when they made it by the skin of their teeth. Safety wasn't really a thought back then, you just got in the airplane and flew it.

Today, we lose perhaps a dozen aircraft a year to accidents. In the 1960s, they were losing hundreds of aircraft a year.

I'm not saying that McCain would be a great president, I'm just saying based on what I know as a career military pilot and hearing the stories of those who went before me, McCain's record isn't unusual. Hell, one of the guys I looked up to the most told me that after a weekend of drinking, they had to fly a mission and while still hung over went to lift the helicopter to a hover and instead rolled it onto its side...they simply gathered their stuff, let the fire department take care of the wreck, and got in another helicopter and went about their day. By today's standards, they would have been booted out ASAP, but things are also very different now.

[AndyA]

29. Wrong.

All of these facts add up to a man who is not capable of being President of the United States. McSame doesn't have the temperament, the mental abilities, the ethics, or anything else that's required. McSame has exposed himself as a hot head reactionary, which is exactly the worst thing we could possibly have in the Oval Office.

McSame's military record, which he highly touts, is fair game.

[DallasNE]

35. Actually I Think You Are Agreeing With Me

There are all kinds of things to go after McCain on and you name several of them. We just don't need to go after what kind of pilot McCain was 45 years ago.

[Doctor_J]

40. Paid a heavy price?!?

Surely you jest. He's a 100-millionaire senator who's close to becoming president. He's a lying, scheming, mean, hot-tempered liar and his Naval career predicted his reckless, irresponsible government-sponsored adult life with amazing prescience. Take you 200 posts over to freeperville with the rest of the McSame lovers

[obiwan]

19. McCain seems to be a master of crashing and burning.

[struggle4progress]

20. Great article! But not LBN

[mopinko]

25. drinking nt

[Crowman1979]

26. This guy makes Cunningham look like a saint!

Even though he banged anything that walked, he at least made up for it with top notch dog fighting AND NEVER CRASHED! At least to my knowledge. Maybe they need to change the admission requirments at the naval academy and have only 5.0/5.0 enlisted Marines and Sailors under age 30 and below the rank of an E-6 from every state and territory be admitted into the academy.

[tylerdee]

28. I didn't know this! Wow.

[damntexdem]

30. And all these years later, he's still crashing and burning.

Hey, at least he's consistent about SOMETHING!

[paparush]

32. Not fair to compare McCain to Bush....

Bush was a much better pilot!
:rofl:

John "Hey, We Need Another Plane" McCain

[Supersedeas]

34. Honorable -- McCain lies in his autobiography -- just fine as long as Media doesn't check

[OakCliffDem]

36. Not his plane, he didn't have to pay for it

Plus daddy was always their to pull his AZZ outa the fire when he FVGKED up.

[onager]

38. He should have been flying an LMD

Large Metal Desk.