What happened to the USS Forrestal, while in the Gulf of Tonkin, July, 1967?

In July 1967, a devastating fire broke out on board the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal. An electrical anomaly had caused the discharge of a Zuni rocket on the flight deck, triggering a chain-reaction of explosions that killed 134 sailors and injured 161. At the time, Forrestal was engaged in combat operations in the Gulf of Tonkin, during the Vietnam War. The ship survived, but with damage exceeding US$72 million (equivalent to $511 million today), not including the damage to aircraft. Future United States Senator John McCain and future four-star admiral and CINCPACFLT Ronald J. Zlatoper were among the survivors.

The fire left 134 men dead and 161 more injured. Many aircraft and a large amount of ordnance were jettisoned to prevent them from catching fire or exploding. Twenty-one aircraft also sustained enough damage from fire, explosions and salt water, to be stricken from naval inventory, including seven F-4B Phantom IIs and three RA-5C Vigilantes. The fire also revealed that Forrestal required a heavy duty, armored forklift for use in the emergency jettisoning of aircraft (particularly heavier types such as the RA-5C Vigilante) as well as heavy or damaged ordnance. Sailors had been forced to manually jettison numerous 250 and 500 lb bombs by rolling along the deck and off the side.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org

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13 Comments

metrocentralnj

Having spent 18 months of my Naval service aboard the USS Forrestal in the '60's, this was not a difficult question.... memories, very difficult.

cbireland

First to miss this.....chose worst naval aviation disaster. Tricky, must have been something worse sometime.

cbireland

Of course combat losses of aircraft carriers in WW2 might be considered worse but the Forrestal fire would be hard to top as accidents go.

✨KRISTA✨

Marvin Ponton, Yes, he did. Everyone knows it but few talk about it...He was not a good person.

Angeles Dembowski

That was not the only time the Forestal caught fire. My son was in the Navy and called it 'the Forest fire'.

Marvin Ponton

Didn't John McCain have something to do with it starting in the first place seems like I heard something about that

Tom Knox

metrocentralnj, thanks for your service.

dmarkc

Like when Michael Jackson's hair caught fire?

Karen Riedel

metrocentralnj, Thank you. I can’t imagine how awful that was. We need to always remember.

earlepg

I was aboard the USS Coral Sea, a sister carrier at the time. We were also deployed to the Tonkin Gulf at that time. Not taking anything away from the Forrestal disaster, but three months after the incident on the Forrestal, on 27 October 1967, a Zuni rocket that was being assembled ignited and shot 20 feet forward into the bulkhead of the magazine. We lost 4 crewmen and were lucky that it didn't explode.

Hampton Borum

Led to the fire suppression systems being installed on carrier flight decks. It was also used as training for fire and crash crews going forward. I was one of the team leaders years later on the Saratoga.