Terrifying Carrier Landing of US Navy E-2C Hawkeye AEWAC Aircraft.

Northrop E-2C Hawkeye AWEAC Aircraft. Photo Credit: US Navy

US Navy last year revealed a horrifying video of incident occurred aboard the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower. Hawkeyes from Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 123 were working on pre-deployment carrier landing qualifications off the coast of Virginia
on the afternoon of March 18 when the pilots of one of the 60-foot propeller planes noticed that despite a textbook landing — hooking the fourth and final arresting cable on the flight deck — the aircraft wasn't slowing down.

As can be seen in the video given below, as soon as E-2C touches the deck and below down its hook to catch the arresting cable, it continues to go ahead towards the end of flight deck despite the successful recovery by number 4 arresting cable. Horribly the plane skids off the flight deck end area and was almost crashed into the sea but miraculously pilot manages to gain the speed and altitude immediately after he noticed that aircraft had left the flight deck. 

As reported by Navy Times, the one-inch wire ropes laid out across a carrier's flight deck — known as cross deck pendants — are programmed to release a set amount of cable as the aircraft's tail hook drags them behind the plane, to absorb the force of a landing before spooling back up.

Below deck, a purchase cable is attached to each side of the deck pendant to absorb the force of the landing plane, controlled by an arresting gear engine.

On March 18, the engine was miscalibrated and couldn't absorb the energy caused by the landing, which transferred the load to the deck pendant, snapping the left side and sending it whipping across the flight deck.

That happened, Naval Air Force Atlantic determined, because of shoddy maintenance on the No. 4 cable earlier that day, which had shown an error code the last time it'd been hooked.

Three sailors working below deck on the arresting gear were blamed for improperly troubleshooting the error code, missing at least one but possibly two steps, the investigation found, which resulted in a reprogrammed system.

The sailors were not charged with negligence because they believed they had followed the procedure, according to the report. They were, however, recommended for administrative action, including letters of instruction, special fitness evaluations or removal of qualifications.

The report did not say how the sailors were dealt with, but confirmed that commanding officer Capt. Paul Spedero had handled it.

The investigator also came down hard on the maintenance procedure that led to the error, calling it “over-complicated, difficult to execute and does not provide requisite technical explication or any indication of the high consequence nature of its output. While, if executed verbatim, it is technically correct, it is not remotely user friendly or easily executable in the operational environment.”

In addition to retraining sailors on arresting gear and aircraft launch and recovery, the report recommends adding warnings to the troubleshooting process and creating new local operating procedures for the ship. 

Image and video credits: US Navy, Department of Defense