The Sentinel, Jet Blast 210405

The picture below shows the open hangar bays on the Kitty Hawk.

This story is true and actually brought about a change in Navy safety policy. It was fall of 1966 and I was onboard the Kitty Hawk. We had been out at sea a short time and were headed over to the gulf of Tonkin to join the carrier task force operating off Vietnam. It was my first cruise, along with the first cruise for many more young sailors.

I was still eager to get more familiar with the ship. I was walking across the hangar deck and headed in the direction of an A4 Skyhawk that was chocked and anchored by the number 1 elevator with its tail pointed out of the hanger deck.

The elevators are kept up at the flight deck level and the wire safety net is around the edge of the elevator and that is four stories up from the hangar deck, leaving the hangar bay doors open with one small wire across the opening like a miniature waist high rope.

The A4 was in place while a jet mechanic ran up the engine to 100% power after doing some maintenance work. The plane captain was out in front giving the mechanic the turn to signal and watching the operation.

A pair of young snipes (engine room crewmen, pale as ghosts, for they rarely ever leave the bowels of the ship) came strolling along, down the deck, getting a breath of fresh air on their way to the mess deck (galley). These two new guys had not been above deck since the Air Group came aboard and had never seen any warplanes up close, so they were gawking right and left as they walked down the outer edge of hangar deck. The jet was making a ferocious roar on the hangar deck, so much so it enveloped the area and there was no way to tell where the noise was coming from. I was walking on the center of the hanger deck when I saw them approaching the rear of the plane and starting to pass behind it at the same time the plane captain saw them. It was like a horrible nightmare, we could see the event in a slow motion, the plane captain tried to yell at them to stay clear, but the jet created a din that no voice could penetrate. The two snipes walked right behind the jet and got an instant free ride over the side. It was like a giant invisible broom swept them out over the edge and into the sea. They were gone like a leaf from a tree branch in a storm. The plane captain signaled the mechanic to shut the engine down and he took off to report the incident. Someone else had seen the nightmare unfold and called the bridge. The on duty bridge crew called “man overboard” on the 1MC and the entire ship knew about it in an instant. The ship radioed the destroyers in our battle group to pick the hapless snipes out of the water and the rescue helicopter was called to launch.

As memory serves, one was picked up and the other was lost at sea. Those poor guys had no idea of what could and did happen to them. From that time on, whenever a jet turned up for maintenance on any Navy ship, there was not only a plane captain up front, but two other squadron members, one on either side of the wings and a cable wire forming a triangle to keep unwary walkers away from the danger of jet exhaust on the hanger deck or up on the flight deck.

I never knew those two guys names, but I think about that incident on occasion. Things like that are unforgettable.