Landing on the wrong carrier?

Pi1otguy

Pi1otguy

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Fox McCloud
Are there other more modern (1970s-present) incidents of a pilot landing on the wrong carrier?

Does the navy really allow crew to tag a plane like that these days? (0:45 in the clip)

 
I believe that during the Korean war period, the US had as many as 23 carriers in operation. It wasn't uncommon to see multi-carrier air strikes. And, sometimes getting back to any deck was more important than getting back to your own.

Today, in the age of the super-carrier, its rare to see carriers operating jointly. During my time, it was one incoming battle group, and one outgoing battle group with one carrier each, per theatre of operation.

An, interesting exception was the 3-carrier "show of force" for North Korea in 2018.

Tags were a little more discreet when I was in the Navy. It'd be something nasty drawn on the belly of the itenerant aircraft which wouldn't be found till the next wash job. Or, in our case, it would be seen by the deck crew of the ship that recieved our next external cargo load.

One deployment I went on, the crew chipped in and had decals made with a miniature of our det "patch" and something that in effect said, "you've been tagged!"
 
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Well just in that vid you’ve got an F-4 that could have been in the 70s. The A-7 (VA-195) was at least in the the 70s since that’s when they transitioned. Now, were they mistaken carrier identity or just diverted because of a maint issue or weather? I’m sure there’s plenty of examples of the later.

Back in the early 80’s there was a Tomcat that did a weather divert to NAS Mayport but mistakingly landed at Craig Muni. The runway alignments are similar. We didn’t graffiti it or nothing though. Just happy to see a Tomcat drop in for a visit.

75D4BD5A-E9A2-4357-9958-D77FE0C3CD09.jpeg
 
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Velocity173 said:
Now, were they mistaken carrier identity or just diverted because of a maint issue? I’m sure there’s plenty of examples of the later.
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I wondered that myself. I suppose if you're flying over the vast blue ocean, any carrier could be the right carrier?
 
we landed half the carrier group on our deck when the Forrestal burned.
We had just launched so most of our deck was free. Their aircraft were returning and on empty.

what a bad day, that was!
 
Fairy tales start off with “Once upon a time...” and sea stories start off with “This is no sh*t...”


So... this is no sh*t ... Indian Ocean, 1980, near sundown with very poor visibility as only the dust in the air over the Persian gulf can be, in the E-2 Hawkeye, controlling an EMCON (Emission Controlled) recovery. The carrier has secured all electronic radiation but will continue to recover aircraft. We continue to hold the ship on primary radar while we take up a station off from the carrier at a significant distance. We direct the recovering aircraft to the marshall stack at another location away from the carrier, where they hold at 500’ intervals, and we give them their push time and steer to the ship. From there, we vector them to the ship while they remain silent.
After recovering the whole stack, I give our front seaters their heading and distance to mother and secure my radar.
Off we go, nearly IMC towards hot food and a shower. I hear the guys up front declare “there’s the wake... isn’t it? Yeah! No, too soon. Nope, that’s it. Oh crap! Pull up!” as they lined up on one of the many oil tankers that fill up the gulf. A quick port turn and another 30 seconds and we’re lined up on final for real this time.

So, landed on the wrong carrier? Not quite, not possible, but close!
 
^ Many a time at night I initially thought the plane guard boat was the actual boat (you know, the one you land on). Becomes readily apparent at 3 miles when you pushover and then you look a little farther towards where all the navaids are pointing, and squint and say "ahhhh....that other impossibly smaller one is THE boat".

I'd say it would be pretty difficult to F it up that badly these days. Lots of extra info in the cockpit that our intrepid forefathers didn't have in their Demon/Banshee/Crusader/Phantom. Though the last two of those must have had TACAN which (if working) is a pretty dead giveaway. I've been in a scenario a few times now with 2 CVNs operating in the same area and it has not ever been an issue that I ever saw.

As an aside, one of the last times I was out in Fallon, we had a visiting F-22 settle back onto the runway gear up, during the takeoff roll (and then skid down the runway for several thousand feet). It spent the rest of the month we were there, sadly lurking on the visiting squadron line, weakly traffic-coned off. I can't tell you how many times we came up with a plan at 0200-0400 when the club was closing, to go out to it and tag it with some nice spray paint and sticker "markings". I'll say I am grateful that cooler heads prevailed, as I might have gone to prison for tampering with evidence of a class A F-22 mishap in such a way. Report would have read "additional line of evidence: Navy pilots vandalized the aircraft post mishap, causing an additional cost to the taxpayer of $1.8M due to spray paint on fancy F-22 paint/finish......their testimony offered that saltwater spray, fuel/oil/hyd leaks, and greasy hands were all they needed to treat the surfaces of Navy aircraft so they felt an oil based paint would be suitable"
 
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IIRC there was an A-7 from JFK that landed on Saratoga in the Red Sea during Desert Storm or maybe he took his own waive off late? At one point in ODS we were operating 4 carriers in the Persian Gulf and that's tiny piece of water to do it in. Overlapping marshall stacks at night and seeing multiple carriers in the haze with worn flight decks and fuzzy numbers in the day. Mine was the one that DIDN'T have a smoke stack and trail making it easier.
:D
 
I agree with @35 AoA in that today pilots are more likely not to engage in aircraft graffiti shenanigans. Too many sensitive things could get painted / stickered over.

Having said that, the inter service rivalry can be pretty strong sometimes when you land in their “backyard.” Back in 2007 I was tasked with a static display at the Military College of North Georgia. They sent an Apache to accompany us that wanted to fly formation the way up but we elected to go IFR instead. They went single ship with a refuel stop in Dobbins while we chose Cartersville. While Dobbins is the preferred stop because of DOD fuel, their were two important no go items. Quiet hours were in effect and for some reason, didn’t allow refuel for transient Army aircraft. So the Apache shows up during quiet hours, has to jump thru hoops to get gas and while they were sitting in base ops, the Marines based there decided to plaster the belly with stickers. So here we are 2 hours later, already sitting at the football field when the Apache shows up late with some sort of hot dog overhead break and peculiar white spots on the belly.

So, moral of the story, read the NOTAMS and AFD and never let your aircraft out of sight when sitting on the transient ramp. ;)
 
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The NAVY gets its nose bent easy these days.
2007 I quit because I was told that I couldn't say that sh-- anymore :)
 
Tom-D said:
The NAVY gets its nose bent easy these days.
2007 I quit because I was told that I couldn't say that sh-- anymore :)
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I quit in 07 because BUPERS sent me a nice letter saying I was eligible to retire. Why yes, yes, I will.
 
Pugs said:
I quit in 07 because BUPERS sent me a nice letter saying I was eligible to retire. Why yes, yes, I will.
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I retired active in 1981, Civil service in 2007.. :)
 
Tom-D said:
we landed half the carrier group on our deck when the Forrestal burned.
We had just launched so most of our deck was free. Their aircraft were returning and on empty.

what a bad day, that was!
Click to expand...

Which carrier were you on?
 
Velocity173 said:
Well just in that vid you’ve got an F-4 that could have been in the 70s. The A-7 (VA-195) was at least in the the 70s since that’s when they transitioned. Now, were they mistaken carrier identity or just diverted because of a maint issue or weather? I’m sure there’s plenty of examples of the later.

Back in the early 80’s there was a Tomcat that did a weather divert to NAS Mayport but mistakingly landed at Craig Muni. The runway alignments are similar. We didn’t graffiti it or nothing though. Just happy to see a Tomcat drop in for a visit.

View attachment 88933
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Mayport usually means not getting aboard during CQs and having to divert. It sounds like his bad night only got worse.
 
Boone said:
Mayport usually means not getting aboard during CQs and having to divert. It sounds like his bad night only got worse.
Click to expand...

I believe that was the actual case here but I was a kid at the time so I don’t recall the exact details.

Speaking of F-14 CQ diverts. Looking at your profile pic (VF-102) we actually had a divert to our air station (NBC) from a “Diamond” flight. Friend of mine was working approach when it happened and got a Navy Com out it. We all laughed...he was just doing his job! :D
 
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