The Mc Cain Story

We present the following profile of John McCain. He is the only American in history who could defect to a Communist country and there be declared an Air Ace for their side as he personally destroyed five of our military aircraft in his remarkable military career. 

USS Forrestal fire: Factcheck.org/ Godlikeproductions.com

The 1967 USS Forrestal fire was a devastating event with series of chain-reaction explosions on 29 July 1967 killing 134 sailors and injuring 161 persons on the USS Forrestal (CVA-59), after an electrical anomaly discharged a "Zuni" rocket on the flight deck. Forrestal was in combat operations in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Vietnam War at the time. Damage exceeded US $72 million (equivalent to $502 million today) including damage to aircraft.

The claim has been made:

”Surviving crewmen and those who investigated the Forrestal fire case reported that John McCain deliberately ‘wet-started’ his A-4E Skyhawk as a prank on the F-4 Phantom behind his A-4. "Wet-starts," may be done deliberately, by pumping kerosene fuel into the engine without ignition, then lighting it to shoot a large flame from the tail of the aircraft. It was concluded by investigators that John McCain deliberately "wet-fired" his A-4E.  In McCain’s case, the ‘wet-start’ launched a Zuni rocket from the F-4 behind the.”

Daredevil Piloting: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/10/mccain_fudges_his_navy_record.html

During the course of his flying career in the U.S. Navy, John McCain was involved in five major mishaps or crashes with his aircraft. The most dramatic incidents occurred in 1967. He barely escaped with his life after the missile exploded aboard an aircraft carrier, the USS Forrestal, in July of that year, but killing 134 of his fellow crew members.  In October, McCain was shot down over Vietnam by a surface-to-air missile.

The official Navy report into the Corpus Christi accident on March 12, 1960, concludes that the AD-6 Skyraider trainer crashed because McCain failed to “maintain an airspeed above stall speed.” It attributed the accident to “the preoccupation of the pilot with a power setting too low to maintain level flight.” The single-engine prop plane sank in Corpus Christi Bay.  McCain was rescued by a helicopter after swimming to the surface. The accident report excluded a series of other factors, including engine failure and disorientation of the pilot due to vertigo. But, it concluded pilot error was “the sole contributing factor” to the accident.

A copy of the report was obtained by The Washington Post from the Democratic National Committee, which conducted research at the Naval Historical Center in Washington.  McCain had another accident with a T-2 trainer jet in November 1965, while flying between New York City and Norfolk, Va. The Naval Aviation Safety Center was unable to determine the precise cause of the accident or the degree of pilot error.

McCain wrote later that his engine “flamed out” and he had to eject. In his autobiography, McCain recalls another mishap around December 1961 when “I knocked down some power lines while flying too low over southern Spain. My daredevil clowning cut off electricity to a great many Spanish homes and created a small international incident.”

He landed his Skyraider back on the USS Intrepid after the incident, which does not appear to have triggered a safety investigation, but then John McCain's father and grandfather were both high ranking Admirals in the US Navy.

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