The Virginian-Pilot September 13, 2003
CARRIER PILOTS GROUNDED FOR CRASH INVESTIGATION
By MATTHEW DOLAN
Fighter pilots aboard the George Washington have stopped flying as investigators arrived on the Norfolk-based carrier to investigate why a cable failed to catch an F/A-18 Hornet on Thursday.
Navy officials said the cable, known as an arresting wire, on the carrier's flight deck broke during the jet's landing. The Hornet then went overboard, forcing the pilot to eject and injuring about a dozen sailors.
But key details - how the accident happened and how sailors on the flight deck were injured - remained undisclosed.
The George Washington has been underway and off the coast of Virginia since Tuesday, testing new pilots' ability to take off and land on the 4 1/2-acre flight deck. The pre-deployment process is known as carrier qualifications for the Atlantic Fleet Replacement Squadron, some of the Navy's newest pilots.
The pilot involved in the accident was rescued safely from the water, but five of the injured were flown off the carrier to local hospitals, officials said.
Portsmouth Naval Medical Center treated and planned to release three sailors Friday, said spokeswoman Lt. Jackie Fisher. The sailors declined to be interviewed, said Cmdr. Lydia Robertson, a spokeswoman for the Atlantic Fleet's Naval Air Force.
One of the sailors brought to the trauma unit at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital was moved Friday to Portsmouth Naval because the patient's condition had improved, Fisher said.
The other sailor at Norfolk General was still listed in serious condition Friday. The Navy has not released the names of the injured.
According to officials, the Hornet pilot approached the carrier at around 4 p.m. and tried to latch his tailhook to the flight deck's fourth and last arresting wire. The wire did not hold.
About 12 sailors were injured, officials said. Most had cuts and bruises. The Navy did not say whether the unsecured wire struck the sailors directly.
An F-14 Tomcat fighter jet and an E-2C Hawkeye early-warning plane were also damaged during the accident, officials said.
All of the injured sailors "are doing fine," Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark told reporters Friday after a briefing he received on the accident. Clark, the Navy's top officer, was in Virginia Beach as keynote speaker for the establishment of the Navy's Human Performance Center at Dam Neck.
"My immediate interest is the speedy recovery of those sailors," he said. "The second order of business is to find out how this happened. Something like this hasn't happened in years and years."
Since 1980, there have been three deaths, 12 major injuries and five minor injuries associated with arresting gear-related accidents, according to data compiled Friday for The Virginian-Pilot by the Naval Safety Center in Norfolk. The data included Thursday's accident.
Two teams intend to explore the accident's aftermath, Robertson said. One group would look at the arresting wire gear; the other would serve as an investigation team into the accident.
The George Washington, a Nimitz-class carrier, is essentially a floating airport, capable of launching as many as four aircraft per minute. The ship's four catapults and four arresting gear engines can launch and recover aircraft simultaneously.
The four arresting wires, each consisting of thick cables connected to hydraulic rams below deck, bring landing aircraft going as fast as 150 mph to a stop in less than 400 feet, according to GlobalSecurity.org, an independent Web site specializing in defense information.
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