IT HAS been said on more than one occasion that an aircraft carrier’s flight deck is one of the most dangerous workplaces in the world, with people walking around in a space tightly packed with all sorts of aircraft taxiing around, taking off and landing.
Indeed, everyone stepping onto one of these generally 40m by 76m spaces is reminded again and again to “beware of jet blast, propellers and rotor blades”.
Ever since the 1990s, a video has gone viral along with the claim that it shows a man getting sucked into an aircraft’s air intake – but not the engine itself – while walking around on duty on a flattop’s flight deck?
The black-and-white video is indeed dramatic, complete with flames shooting out the back of the aircraft in question after the unfortunate soul is sucked into the air inlet of the aircraft in question.
And crazier still, it has been also claimed that this sailor actually survived the encounter. Is this true?
VERDICT:
TRUE
It is indeed true that a US Navy sailor actually survived being sucked into the air inlet of an aircraft on the flight deck of one of it’s carriers.
The incident in question happened in the early hours of Feb 20, 1991 and the carrier on which the incident happened was the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
According to the account as presented in the American military-focused portal The National Interest, the sailor in question. was 21-year-old Navy serviceman John Bridget, who was sucked into the inlet of an A-6E Intruder attack aircraft.
“On February 20, 1991, at 3:41am, a Navy crew was preparing an A-6E for takeoff. As a trainee checked the position of the launching mechanism and backed away from the plane, Bridget walked forward — and was violently pulled into the air and sucked into the A-6E’s enormous turbine,” said The National Interest’s Trevor Filseth.
He acknowledges that a dramatic black-and-white clip of the incident has been circulating since the accident took place, adding that Bridget was slowly extracted from the inlet – and he was still alive.
To explain why, Filseth cited details given by Navy reservist Daniel P. Streckfuss, who said that this was due to how Bridget’s arm extended above his head.
Streckfuss also said that the design of the A-6’s engine inlet allowed Bridget to survive the accident, as its small dimensions wedged him in place.
“This caused his body to wedge in the inside wall of the intake. Lucky for him, his cranial (helmet) and float coat were sucked in first causing the foreign object to damage the engine, which prompted the pilot to cut the throttle,” said Streckfuss.
Ultimately, it took another three minutes for other sailors to extract Bridget from the inlet – a rare case of a man surviving his face-to-face encounter with near-death.
SOURCES:
nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/1991-us-sailor-was-sucked-jet-engine-and-survived-187270
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF55oyAJDBk&ab_channel=SmithsonianChannel
