. . Published on January 6, 2014.  Looking Back - January /
February 2014  ON THE MORNING OF JULY 29, 1967, an alert went
out across the USS Forrestal: “General quarters. This is not a
drill.”  A fire had broken out on the flight deck of the
Forrestal, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin,
about 60 miles (96 kilometers) off the coast of North Vietnam.
Two aircraft had just taken off when an armed Zuni rocket
accidentally launched from an F-4 Phantom fighter, striking an
A-4E Skyhawk jet that was waiting to take off on the port side
of the ship. According to the ship’s log, fuel began leaking
from the plane’s center line fuel tank, and the tank erupted at
10:52 a.m.  The impact also dislodged a 1,000-pound
(454-kilogram) bomb from the Skyhawk. The bomb rolled into the
fire and exploded a minute and 26 seconds later, killing the
flight deck chief and a number of first responders trying to get
fire hoses into position. Within seconds, two more 1,000-pound
bombs exploded, and a fourth exploded 42 se