Master Chief Petty officer

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[Packo]

Ron,

If he was a Master Chief, he's SALTY and should keep you entertained with his stories. I have really liked almost all the Master Chief's I've met since I started workin' for the Navy. They are a funny group of guys.

Pack

[Boats]

I think McCain did say it was his missle that went off. I recall hearing something like that on a talk show but he or didnt' know why it fired. So many aircraft packed on the deck you never know what is going on most of the time.

[Boats]

Here's a piece I just pulled down from an interview - where he was asked that question.

Cove: Can you tell me about the fire aboard the Forestall?


McCain: We were preparing for an Alpha Strike, and there was a large number of airplanes and I was in mine, had started the engine and was going through the engine checks. Across the flight deck from me was an F4 Phantom, and on the Phantom wings were Zuni rockets, which are long, 6' long rockets. And the procedure that is required, onboard safety procedures, is that there is what we call a pigtail which is an electrical connection that goes to the rear-end of the rocket, and the way that the rocket is fired is an electrical impulse fires the... goes through that and fires the rocket. Well, that pigtail as it is called is not supposed to be inserted until the airplane is on the catapult facing the water. Those rules were violated unfortunately that day and the pigtail was inserted in the Zuni rocket, and as the pilot went from external power which is what is used to start the engine of the airplane, much like a commercial airliner, to internal power which means that you use the power from... you are not dependent on the outside source of electricity anymore. A very large charge of stray electricity went through the pigtail and fired the Zuni rocket across the flight deck, punched through the fuel tank, the 200 gallon fuel tank that was underneath my A4 Skyhawk, and continued on. The fuel spilled out naturally, and the fuel was on fire. And in a very short period of time, there was a huge conflagration on the Forestall, which ended up taking the lives of 135 young sailors, and took about 12 to 18 hours, depending on how you look at it, to put the fire out. I shut down the engine of my... I felt the shock, saw the fire, and jumped out by going out on the refueling probe, and all this is on film, by the way, because it was... we had constant filming of the flight deck, and rolled through the fire, and went across the other side of the flight deck, saw people running around, saw a number of things including people with a fire hose, and I saw the pilot of the plane next to mine jump out of his airplane, only he didn't jump as far and when he rolled out he was on fire. And I started towards him. Just as I did, the first bomb blew off and knocked me back. And then other bombs started going off, and that is when the conflagration started. I would say there couldn't have been more than about 2 minutes between the time that my airplane was hit by the Zuni rocket until the time that the first bomb went off, which then complicated the disaster dramatically, of course.

[QM3steve]

We had a Senior Chief Quartermaster on the Tamaroa. (QM in the CG is navigation). QMCS Weatherbee. Talk about salt. I believe he spent most of his career on the water. He was as worn as his name says. Super guy and as laid back as anyone I knew. As you said Pack, the stories he could tell would keep you occupied for...months. On the same token, these guys, Master Chief, Senior Chief and even Warrent Officers had a way of getting strings pulled, BIG TIME. They knew someone somewhere.

[Packo]

Steve,

One of my best buddies is a plank owner on the Ranger. (not the original!) He always told me that the only two rank worth a shit in the Navy are Chief and Warrent Officer. I hear what your saying. The last Command Master Chief came to Deb and my wedding in May. He showed up on a Heritage Soft Tail. My kinda sailor! Many of the woman, including Deb, fell in love with this guy. Can't wait till he returns from his last ship....he's retiring here and I'll have my golf buddy back.

Pack

[Boats]

Ron

Here's a link discussing some of the problems with Zuni Rockets

http://www.tswg.gov/tswg/ip/RF_Brochure_August_2005.pdf

[Boats]

Here are two other articles on Zuni's I found -

USS FORESTALL

Eight months after the Oriskany fire there was an accident on the USS Forestall. A ZUNI rocket was accidentally fired from an aircraft being readied for a mission on July 29, 1967. The rocket screamed across the flight deck, struck another aircraft and ignited a fuel fire. The initial fire could have been contained but, 90 seconds after the fire started, a bomb detonated killing or seriously wounding most of the fire fighters.
The detonation ruptured the flight deck and burning fuel spilled into the lower levels of the ship. Bombs, warheads, and rocket motors exploded with varying egress of intensity in the fire, killing 134 and wounding 161 men. Twenty-one aircraft were destroyed
After this incident the Navy established a flag level committee to pursue improvements to the systems used to control flight deck fuel fires. An ordnance safety program was also initiated to characterize flight deck fuel fires and study ways to delay the "cook-off" times of munitions. As a result; insulation is now applied to some bomb casings, delaying "cook-off" times 5 to 10 minutes in a fuel fire, but this does not diminish the violence of its explosive reaction.

USS ENTERPRISE

A third aircraft carrier accident occurred aboard the USS Enterprise (Not NCC-1701) on January 15, 1969. The exhaust from an aircraft engine starter unit was directed onto a pod containing four ZUNI rockets. Heat caused a warhead to detonate. Fragments ruptured the aircraft's fuel tank and ignited a fire.
Three more ZUNI warheads detonated less than a minute after the first explosion. The shaped charges blew holes through the flight deck allowing burning fuel to invade the lower decks.
In all, there were 18 munition's explosions and 8 holes were blown through the flight deck. Losses totaled 15 aircraft, 28 dead, and another 344 injured.

[SparrowHawk62]

There were a host of mistakes made aboard the Forrestal, many are contributed to the Old Ammunition that was loaded on her aircraft.

Because of a shortage of thousand-pound bombs, old Composition B bombs had been loaded from the ammunition ship USS Diamond Head, instead of safer H6, capable of withstanding high heat or exploding with low order. About 10:50 (local time), a Zuni rocket fired from an F-4 Phantom II by an electrical power surge hit an A-4 Skyhawk getting ready to launch, piloted by Lt. Cmdr. John McCain. The missile struck and knocked off the aircraft's fuel tank and started a fire. With his aircraft surrounded by flames, John McCain escaped from his jet by climbing out of the *censored*pit, walking down the nose, and jumping off the refueling probe. Video tape shot aboard the Forrestal shows McCain narrowly escaping the explosion[1].

One minute and thirty-four seconds after the impact, the "Comp. B" bomb exploded underneath McCain's plane, starting a major fire which threatened to destroy the ship. The two A-4s ahead of McCain's plane were engulfed in the flaming JP-5 jet fuel spewing from them. A bomb dropped to the deck, rolled about 6 feet (2 m) and came to rest in a pool of burning fuel.

Do I think McCain launched a Zuni, hell no. The man bearly escaped from his burning plane. I feel as do others the ordnance "cooked off".
The haunting training film we watched while I was in the Navy is ingrained in my mind. Images of the "Chief with the fire extinguisher" who is shown rushing toward the fire and then disappears when an explosion occurs. Fire fighting teams being wiped out. It's a bit to much to think about.

[Robert Ryan]

The only thing I remember about the films from the Forestall fire was seeing the Cheif with the fire extinguisher running twoard a plane, either to get the pilot out or try to start to put out the fire, you didn't see anymore of that chief.