Maritime History

1967 USS Forrestal fire

On July 29 1967, a fire broke out on board the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal, which was engaged in combat in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Vietnam War. The fire was caused by an inadvertently fired Zuni rocket which ruptured an external fuel tank of an A-4 Skyhawk. The tank's jet fuel spilled across the flight deck, ignited, and triggered a chain reaction of explosions that killed 134 sailors and injured 161. The ship survived, but with damage exceeding US$ 72 million, not including the damage to aircraft. Future United States Senator John McCain and future four-star admiral and U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Ronald J. Zlatoper were among the survivors. Another on-board officer, Lieutenant Tom Treanore, later returned to the ship as her commander, and ultimately retired as an admiral. This was the second of three serious fires to strike American carriers in the 1960s. A 1966 fire aboard USS Oriskany killed 44 and injured 138, and a 1969 fire aboard USS Enterprise killed 28 and injured 314. The disaster prompted the Navy to revise its firefighting practices. It also modified its weapon-handling procedures, and installed a deck wash-down system on all carriers. A newly established firefighting school in Norfolk, Virginia was named Farrier Firefighting School after Chief Gerald W. Farrier, the commander of Forrestal's Damage Control Team 8, who was killed.

Also on this shelf

See also

• ▸German battleship Scharnhorst
• ▸Church of the Saviour, Beijing
• ▸Koyambedu

Uncatalogued shelf

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