Military oh shit moments

Approximately $37.8 million (in 1985 value) of your tax dollars sit at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, but at least Mike Boyd is here to remind us all. Here is THE plane he was flying, Sundowner 200. Ejection Day, the story, in his own words...

On the night of March 31, 1985, I was flying an F-14A "Tomcat" while deployed aboard the nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), on patrol in the North Arabian Sea. My RIO was LT Mike "Squig" DeMuch, we were on a mission practicing night radar intercepts. After being catapulted from the carrier deck, we joined with one of the air wing's KA-6 refueling tankers to top off our fuel tanks before proceeding on our mission. We conducted numerous air- to- air radar intercepts during the mission, and upon completion, headed back to the ship to prepare for our night carrier landing. We began the standard night carrier approach sequence: Extending the landing gear and landing flaps, and lowering our tailhook. Suddenly our "Master Caution" light began to flash, alerting me to the F-14's hydraulic pressure gauge. This gauge contains indications for both of the F-14's hydraulic systems. Normally, both indicators show 3000 p.s.i., but now the indicator for the left side hydraulic system showed 0 p.s.i. This constitutes an emergency situation in the F-14. LT DeMuch then declared an emergency to the carrier, and it was acknowledged. The "Tomcat" is capable of flying on only one hydraulic system, but in case of a subsequent failure of the remaining hydraulic system, getting back on deck ASAP is the proper course of action. Approximately 5 seconds from touchdown, we received a mandatory "wave-off, fouled deck" call from the Landing Signal Officer (LSO). We later learned that another aircraft had inadvertently entered the landing area, preventing our landing. I executed the "wave-off" and turned downwind for another approach.

Attached: f14.jpg (960x632, 60K)

This is when things went terribly wrong. At 1200 feet above the water, the flight controls began to "freeze up" , and the aircraft became nearly impossible to control. I was so busy just trying to keep from flying in to the water that there was no time to look around the cockpit for the source of this new problem. I was finally able to climb the aircraft up to around 5000 feet, affording me time to scan the various instruments and gauges. One more check of the hydraulic gauge revealed my worst fear: BOTH of the hydraulic systems were now indicating 0 p.s.i. ! I relayed this information back to the ship, and told LT DeMuch to start preparing to eject. I was able to fly the "Tomcat" for about 25 more minutes, using only the plane's twin rudders and engines for control, as the main flight controls were essentially frozen in place. The aircraft was not nearly controllable enough for a landing, especially a carrier landing. The fuel gauge became my clock, when I was out of fuel, I was out of time. The fuel gauge eventually reached 0, and I told LT DeMuch to initiate the ejection. The ejection sequence went as advertised, and we parachuted into the North Arabian Sea. After 2 hours in our life rafts, we were picked up by two of the carrier's H-3 helicopters and returned back to the USS Carl Vinson.

Attached: b5f.jpg (500x491, 28K)

I'm missing something here. What did the pilot do wrong!?

flew the clumsy malfunction prone death trap known as the f14

It's a damn shame we never got to see the F-111B:
Wouldn't have been a particularly good dogfighter,
but definitely the best possible CAP/EWAR/AWACS

Attached: F-111B-TFX.jpg (1024x466, 336K)

Nothing I don't have the info as to why, I only have the what.

The oh shit moment was had by the guy who fouled the deck.

2 hrs on a rescue blows ( not standard time) had one dead stick incident on an a-7 once( not much protocol for manual) try to triple redundant hydraulics as per nattops on 18 legacy two( handpump) sorry sundowner!!!!! Rocked with "deputy" in the day. Thank you for sharing!!!! 50 cent bullett saga

Mini boss have a field day on deck ape WTF