The U.S. Navy's first "supercarrier" is being sold for just 1 cent to a ship breaker.The economy of "Ship Breaking" is curious, and not always sensible to those of us who have an appreciation for the historic value of war ships.
The USS Forrestal, launched in 1954 and decommissioned in 1993, is the first of three conventional (non-nuclear) carriers due to be scrapped in the coming years.
The Forrestal is best known for a devastating fire in 1967 that engulfed the ship's flight deck, killing 134 sailors and wounding 161 others. Navy crewmen try to put out a fire aboard the USS Forrestal in the Tonkin Gulf, off the coast of Vietnam, on July 29, 1967. Navy crewmen try to put out a fire aboard the USS Forrestal in the Tonkin Gulf, off the coast of Vietnam, on July 29, 1967.
In a statement, the U.S. Navy says , which was awarded the contract for the ship, is developing a final tow plan to get the ship "from its current berth at the Navy's inactive ship facility in Philadelphia to All Star Metals' facility in Brownsville, Texas. The ship is expected to depart Philadelphia before the end of the year."
Ah! "It's The Economy, Stupid!"
A 60-year-old Aircraft Carrier (or .. "Carrier Vessel:" ... here, "CV-59") is a drag on the economy in these times, and while some may consider the low Low LOW purchase price to be an insult, it's really just the very best way in which the U.S. Navy can rid itself of 'junk' which requires tens, perhaps thousands of dollars annually to maintain in The Graveyard of Unsunken Ships near Philladelphia. Other ships of dubious current value lie in rust and rot near Treasure Island, under a bridge in San Francisco.
Stars and Stripes says of the ship's famous fire:
"[The] Forrestal was in the Gulf of Tonkin the morning of July 29, 1967, for the-[the link to A-4 Skyhawk is added by the editor]Vietnam War effort when stray voltage triggered a rocket to launch from an F-4 Phantom on the flight deck.
"The rocket struck an armed A-4 Skyhawk — piloted by a young Lt. Cmdr. John S. McCain III — rupturing thefuel tanks and sparking a chain reaction of fires and explosions on the deck, which was parked full of planes.
"The crew fought the flight deck fire for an hour, but other fires blazed into the next day."
The fire threatened a young John McCain.
Is this the true story?
In the 1980's, I met a new Systems Analyst/Programmer at my place of work. I invited him to a drink after work, and he told me there (after a couple of drinks) that he had been a Aircraft Weapons Officer on an aircraft carrier during the Vietnam war. He told me an abbreviated version of his story; how he had somehow inadvertently released a missile (rocket) while on the deck of an aircraft carrier, and "it blew up a plane'.
When I pressed him for details, he became reluctant to discuss the incident, and soon left the establishment. He had told me that he was on a "Corsair", which I thought was an (A-7) Ground Support Attack Plane. Not an A-4 Skyhawk, although the two planes were both in service at the same time, and served complimentary missions.
I'm pretty sure that his story was entirely unrelated to the Forrestal Disaster.
On the other hand .. the explanation of a "Stray voltage" sounds .. well,lame.
I have personal experience of a low-flying helicopter passing a Division Base Camp in Vietnam initiating the firing mechanism of a Claymore Mine .. during my first week "In Country". The electrically firing blasting caps were notoriously ultra-sensative. (And I'm pretty sure that I have written about this some years ago.)
--
I'm pretty sure that I'm evoking a question based on unrelated incidents.
And I'm pretty sure that this sounds like "Conspiracy Theory", trying to over-ride Military History with a tall tale told in a bar.
Still ... I do wonder .....
2 comments:
The Navy came out ahead in the deal. It is costs an enormous amount to clean up a derelict ship so it can be broken up or turned into an artificial reef. First there are tons upon tons of hazardous material that must be stripped and cleaned in an approved manner. This ranges from asbestos, to lead paint to PCBs, to lube oils. All this must be done according to EPA and OSHA regulations, and the material properly disposed of. The ship breakers in Brownsville, Texas will make a profit, but not a huge one. The Navy will not have to pay the cost of demolishing the ship. People don't realize that the reason these ships are obsolete after about 30 some years is the difficulty and cost to maintain them. Spare parts are no longer made, or in the system, so are doubly expensive to procure The hull may still be strong, but the ship's systems cannot be maintained.
Re: the rocket firing...as a tech working the flight deck, I had to do a firing circuit and stray voltage check on weapons systems before an aircraft's arming. Even after the checks, following the Forrestal fire, no carrier aircraft were electrically fully armed until the aircraft was on the cat with the weapons pointed away from anything "friendly". For a weapon to be "fully armed", the weapon had to be electrically "connected" to the aircraft (arming pigtail for the bomb rack attached, arming cable for a rocket pod connected, etc.), AND the safing pin removed from the weapon system - both of which were performed when the aircraft reached the cat. Apparently, in the Forrestal accident, the pre-arm checks were performed with a faulty testing unit, giving a false "good" stray-voltage reading, THEN the pod's arming cable was connected, AND the safing pin was removed, causing the pod to fire across the deck and hitting an A-4 droptank. Although the deaths and injuries of the fire were beyond tragic, much good came from it in the form of the current safety practices.
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