![]() ![]() “McCain jumped on a helicopter with the Times reporter and said he needed ‘R&R’ in Saigon.” ![]() ![]() I’m not omniscient, but I suspect he contributed to the Forrestal fire in some manner because his behavior immediately afterword was very suspicious,” Garrison told TheDCNF in an email. “The war monger McCain may not have been the cause of the Forrestal fire. Pilots told that it is possible to wet start an engine without an afterburner, though. The nose of McCain’s plane faced toward the center of the carrier, meaning that the jet flames would have gone over the edge of the carrier.į called the wet start claim a “ preposterous notion” because the A-4 Skyhawk did not have an afterburner, which would create the effect. The position of McCain’s plane also means that a stream of fire from a wet start would not have reached another plane. “A thick tongue of flame lashed backward from the parked jet, igniting a missile on one of the dozen or so planes parked near the fantail.”īeling noted that he had not been able to sort out conflicting reports, though, and the Navy investigation later dismissed the wet start theory. “This malfunction … occurs about once a week on attack carriers,” the article said. Beling, told the Times that an “extreme wet start” could be one explanation for the start of the fire. Apple Jr., published two days after the disaster, that appears to be the basis of the wet start theory. Garrison pointed The Daily Caller News Foundation to a New York Times article by reporter R. Other versions of the theory say that McCain startled a pilot with a wet start, which caused the pilot to accidentally fire the rocket that started the fire, or that the wet start itself overheated the rocket and caused it to launch. It gained traction when he ran for president in 2008. The conspiracy theory that McCain is responsible for the USS Forrestal disaster has floated around the internet for over a decade. It also blamed management communication and leadership issues, though the report said that “no improper acts of commission or omission by personnel embarked in FORRESTAL directly contributed to the inadvertent firing of the ZUNI rocket.” The incident led to many changes in Navy safety standards and protocols. The report blamed the disaster largely on poor safety procedures, poor rocket launcher design and obsolete weapons. Many bombs on the carrier were from World War II, some in crates labeled 1935, and were more susceptible to being “cooked off” and exploding in the fire. He said that he helped push bomb carts overboard to prevent them from exploding. McCain’s memoir and sworn testimony less than two weeks after the disaster also dispute Garrison’s assertion that McCain did nothing to help during the fire. Freeman, author of the book “ Sailors to the End” about the USS Forrestal fire, said that it is possible that the rocket hit either or both planes. McCain said in his 1999 memoir “ Faith of My Fathers” that it was his plane that was hit by the Zuni rocket, though the official investigation said that it hit the plane next to him. Fuel poured out of the plane, caught fire, and the flames engulfed other planes and caused bombs to explode. The rocket hit a plane on the other side of the flight deck, ruptured its fuel tank and ignited the fire. Navy’s official investigation of the incident contradict Garrison’s account of how the fire started.Īn electrical malfunction caused a Zuni rocket to fire from one of the planes on board, the investigation found. The fire raged for more than 24 hours, claiming the lives of 134 sailors and airmen and injuring 161 more.įindings from the U.S. McCain, then a lieutenant commander, was assigned to the carrier and flew an A-4E Skyhawk jet. The post was shared over 1,000 times on Facebook and spread by commenters on blogs and on Twitter.įorrestal was an aircraft carrier stationed off the coast of Vietnam that experienced a catastrophic fire on July 29, 1967. McCain did nothing to help during the fire.” “The huge flame created touched off a bomb on the plane behind him which led to more bombs going off from other parked planes, which then led to the deaths of 134 sailors. “On July 29, 1967, the spoiled brat McCain pulled a prank and wet-started his jet while aboard the USS Forrestal,” it said. ![]() The post, “Ten Reasons Not to Mourn John McCain,” appeared on Garrison’s website alongside a political cartoon about McCain after he died Saturday. ![]()
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