“Forest” Fire
29 JULY 1967
“FOREST” FIRE
There were three major fires aboard US Navy aircraft carriers during the course of the Vietnam conflict. The first occurred on 26 October 1966, killing 44 sailors aboard ORISKANY (CVA-34) after a phosphorous parachute flare accidently ignited in a hangar-deck storage locker. The last was aboard ENTERPRISE (CVAN-65) on 14 January 1969, when a rocket ignited under the wing of an F-4 during start-up, touching off a multi-level blaze that killed 28 and took three hours to control. But the worst, and best remembered, of these disasters occurred aboard USS FORRESTAL (CVA-59).
Having transferred from the Atlantic Fleet for a rotation off Southeast Asia, FORRESTAL had arrived on Yankee Station just four days earlier. Her seven squadrons, VF-11, VF-74, VA-46, VA-106, VAH-10, RVAH-11, and VAW-123 flew 150 sorties without incident. Flight operations were continuing around 1100 on the 29th of July when a Zuni air-to-ground rocket under the wing of an F-4B misfired as the plane was being readied on the after flight deck. The rocket skidded forward among aircraft crowding the deck and struck an A-4 in the fuel tank. The resultant explosion spread flaming JP-5 over the after half of the flight deck. Within minutes ordnance and fuel from other aircraft began exploding. Fanned by a 20-knot wind, the blaze quickly turned to an inferno and spread to berthing spaces below the flight deck. Here the flames blocked the egress of about fifty unfortunate sailors.
Meanwhile secondary explosions were turning the 4-acre flight deck into an aircraft scrapyard. Panicked sailors began ripping ordnance from aircraft hardpoints to be thrown overboard. Many were blown overboard themselves, or had bombs and rockets explode in their faces. It took almost an hour, with firefighting help from nearby ORISKANY and RUPERTUS (DD-851), to control the flight deck blaze. Secondary fires below decks burned into the night.
One hundred and thirty-four officers and enlisted lost their lives in this tragedy. Sixty-four aircraft were destroyed or damaged. FORRESTAL was detached to Norfolk where $72 million in repairs began in September (not including replacement aircraft). She returned to active service, this time with the dubious nickname, “USS Forest Fire” which she carried for years. On 4 February 1991 she was re-designated AVT-59 and took over as our pilot training carrier, replacing the venerable WWII-era LEXINGTON (AVT-16). Her duty in this capacity was short-lived, she was decommissioned on 30 September 1993, another victim of post-Cold War downsizing. Video of this after deck disaster was subsequently used in a film shown to many sailors of the late 20th century as part of damage control training.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 5 AUG 24
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Mersky, Peter B. and Norman Polmar. The Naval Air War in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Nautical and Aviation Pub., 1981, pp. 121-22.
Polmar, Norman. The Naval Institute Guide to the Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet, 16th ed. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1997, pp. 87,101.
Sweetman, Jack. American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3rd ed. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 227.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: Flight deck cameras caught much of this mishap, including the escape of the pilot of the A-4 struck by the rocket. LCDR John S. McCain, III, saved his own life and that of another pilot, after jumping from the wing of his Skyhawk. He was wounded in the legs and chest by fragments of an exploding bomb. He would later be shot down over Hanoi and spend 5 1/2 years as a POW of the North Vietnamese.
FORRESTAL remembers former Secretary of the Navy and our first Secretary of Defense in 1947, James V. Forrestal. McCain is remembered today, along with his father and grandfather, with the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer JOHN S. MCCAIN (DDG-58). We currently do not maintain a designated AVT carrier.
