Navy Pilot McCain, flew low, tended to crash
According to this Los Angeles Times article today:
In 1960 Texas, the young pilot turned a plane at a lower than required power setting and crashed into Corpus Christi Bay. McCain claimed the engine had failed; however, Navy investigators found he wasn't paying attention to the power level, had lost track of altitude and speed, and there was no indication of engine failure.
Late 1961 Spain: In what McCain himself calls "daredevil clowning" and "flying too low," he crashed into electrical wires and severed an oil line in his plane. He would have been flying under the 500 foot lower altitude limit for the aircraft.
1965 Virginia: McCain claimed to have heard an explosion in his plane's engine followed by a loss of power. He ejected himself from the plane at 1,000 feet; the plane crashed in the woods. The Naval Aviation Safety Center report first issued stated that McCain failed to switch to the power backup battery, ejected too late and too low, was not wearing proper flight equipment, and was positioned improperly to eject; no engine malfunction was determined. The report was later revised and the accident attributed to undetermined engine malfunction or failure.
October 1967 Hanoi: Flying 3,000 feet above Hanoi, where 4,000-10,000 feet was the norm, McCain ignored warning tones from instruments alerting on surface-to-air missiles, not an unusual occurrence among Navy pilots. However, a wing of McCain's plane was blown off. He ejected at 500 feet into Truc Bach Lake from where he was pulled by two local men, who turned him over to police, on his way to the "Hanoi Hilton" prison.
Rolling Stone points to yet another plane crashed by McCain, which is referred to as "third and final," but counts as a fifth crash, given the above record, and taking place, apparently, in the 1980s before he left the Navy for politics.
As his marriage unraveled, McCain's naval career was also stalling out. He had been passed over for a promotion. There was no sea command on the horizon, ensuring that he would never be able to join his four-star forefathers. For good measure, he crashed his third and final plane, this one a single-engine ultralight. McCain has never spoken of his last crash publicly, but his friend Gen. Jim Jones recalled in a 1999 interview that it left McCain with bandages on his face and one arm in a sling.
From the Times article:
As a presidential candidate, McCain has cited his military service -- particularly his 5 1/2 years as a POW. But he has been less forthcoming about his mistakes in the cockpit.The Times interviewed men who served with McCain and located once-confidential 1960s-era accident reports and formerly classified evaluations of his squadrons during the Vietnam War. This examination of his record revealed a pilot who early in his career was cocky, occasionally cavalier and prone to testing limits.
In today's military, a lapse in judgment that causes a crash can end a pilot's career. Though standards were looser and crashes more frequent in the 1960s, McCain's record stands out.
"Three mishaps are unusual," said Michael L. Barr, a former Air Force pilot with 137 combat missions in Vietnam and an internationally known aviation safety expert who teaches in USC's Aviation Safety and Security Program. "After the third accident, you would say: Is there a trend here in terms of his flying skills and his judgment?"
Jeremiah Pearson, a Navy officer who flew 400 missions over Vietnam without a mishap and later became the head of human spaceflight at NASA, said: "That's a lot. You don't want any. Maybe he was just unlucky."
Naval aviation experts say the three accidents before McCain's deployment to Vietnam probably triggered a review to determine whether he should be allowed to continue flying. The results of the review would have been confidential.
The Times asked McCain's campaign to release any military personnel records in the candidate's possession showing how the Navy handled the three incidents. The campaign said it would have no comment.
