Heart stopping moment

[TobyV]

One for the RN types perhaps, or anyone who has ever served on a carrier

http://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio ... s/37248696

[blanston12]

I believe the advice the navy gives the pilots is soon as you hit the deck, go full power, either the cable will stop you or you are going back in the air.

[Airspeed]

From where I'm sitting, that looked luc----ky!

[Archer]

There's been a thread about this on PPRuNe for a while now, it happened last March. I understand that some medals have been awarded to the crew of the aircraft, hopefully also a change of underwear... The snapping cable also injured eight guys on the flightdeck.

[Nigel H-J]

That was one lucky escape!!

Regards
Nigel.

[Scorpius]

As Roger Bacon said:

"The most common unintended outcome is to exit from the manoeuvre at a lower altitude than the entry level"

Nev (who will explain who Roger Bacon was).

[Airspeed]

Hi Nev,
Thanks to uncle internet, I now know that he was not a pig farmer, as I first supposed.
However, being born in the 1200s, I'd say that his knowledge of aircraft carrier landings was on the light side. This, despite his most excellent spelling abilities, a rarity for his time!
Now I stand ready to be corrected.
Oh,.......THAT Roger Bacon.......come on, tell us......

[Scorpius]

Roger Bacon or Uncle Roger graced the back page of Flight International under the heading of 'straight and level'. He would often accompany a picture like this http://resources2.news.com.au/images/20 ... -crash.jpg with the line 'still too late on the roundout Hoskins'.

See here for more stuff;https://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFA ... 200049.PDF

Nev

[Chris Trott]

I've still never heard if the failure was due to mis-set arresting engine, or a failure of the arresting engine. Either way, the cable broke because it went to full length and hit the hard stops without stopping the plane. At this point, a frangible link in the cable (there are 2) sheared and you see the result. The crew is exceptionally lucky because this type of failure is the most extreme since the airplane has been reduced to nearly a stop and then suddenly released. The only reason they survived is because of as was said before- they hit the deck and put the engines to full power. When the cable snapped, the engines were able to accelerate the plane as quickly as possible and giving them the best chance of making flying speed before hitting the water.

[Archer]

There are some bits of info on the cause in this article: http://pilotonline.com/news/military/lo ... 45c9d.html