“Actually, living through the landing wasn’t as bad as seeing it on film later that day,” Frank Peele former A-3 Skywarrior crewman/navigator.
This post contains an amazing video of a Douglas A-3 Skywarrior crash landing on the USS Coral Sea aircraft carrier in 1963. An A-3 lands at 0:30. The nose wheel collapses as it comes into contact with the deck, rolls along the deck, and falls into the sea. Once more taking off, the aircraft waits for orders as the barricade is raised. The Sky Warrior touches down at 0:58, skimming the deck with its nose as it hits the barricade. It comes to rest and rescue teams running out.
Frank Peele was the crewman/navigator in that mishap, as he remembers:
“I was the crewman/navigator in that incident. We did blow the lower hatch. On landing, it crumpled like so much tinfoil. Surprised us, too. Actually, living through the landing wasn’t as bad as seeing it on film later that day. We caught 2 wires on the barricade landing, so proved nothing about the barricade’s ability to stop that much weight. Barricades had been tested with other A-3s but not with our gross weight, so there was some uncertainty right up to the impact.
“Even though the fuselage was slightly buckled aft of the cockpit, the bird was barged to the Naval Air Rework Facility in Alameda, CA, and later returned to service. In 1966, it went down east of the Philippines due to fuel transfer problems; one of the crew was recovered, but the other two were never found.”
The moniker “Whale” originated from the fact that the A3D (redesignated A-3) Skywarrior, with its gross weight of 82,000 pounds, was the largest aircraft to ever operate from an aircraft carrier of the US Navy. When the A3D was first delivered to the fleet in 1956, it represented the atomic punch of carrier aviation, equipping heavy attack squadrons (VAH) with nuclear weaponry.
Interesting Fact: The crew of the A3D bailed out by sliding down a chute that led out the bottom of the aircraft because it lacked ejection seats. Crews came up with the morbid moniker “All Three Dead” by using the Skywarrior’s A3D abbreviation in response to this fact.