http://www.latimes.com/news/printedi...,5745552.story
From the Los Angeles Times


Mishaps mark John McCain's record as naval aviator
Three crashes early in his career led Navy officials to question or
fault his judgment.
By Ralph Vartabedian and Richard A. Serrano
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

October 6, 2008

John McCain was training in his AD-6 Skyraider on an overcast Texas
morning in 1960 when he slammed into Corpus Christi Bay and sheared the
skin off his plane's wings.

McCain recounted the accident decades later in his autobiography. "The
engine quit while I was practicing landings," he wrote. But an
investigation board at the Naval Aviation Safety Center found no
evidence of engine failure.

The 23-year-old junior lieutenant wasn't paying attention and erred in
using "a power setting too low to maintain level flight in a turn,"
investigators concluded.

The crash was one of three early in McCain's aviation career in which
his flying skills and judgment were faulted or questioned by Navy officials.

In his most serious lapse, McCain was "clowning" around in a Skyraider
over southern Spain about December 1961 and flew into electrical wires,
causing a blackout, according to McCain's own account as well as those
of naval officers and enlistees aboard the carrier Intrepid. In another
incident, in 1965, McCain crashed a T-2 trainer jet in Virginia.

After McCain was sent to Vietnam, his plane was destroyed in an
explosion on the deck of an aircraft carrier in 1967. Three months
later, he was shot down during a bombing mission over Hanoi and taken
prisoner. He was not faulted in either of those cases and was later
lauded for his heroism as a prisoner of war.

As a presidential candidate, McCain has cited his military service --
particularly his 5 1/2 years as a POW. But he has been less forthcoming
about his mistakes in the cockpit.

The Times interviewed men who served with McCain and located
once-confidential 1960s-era accident reports and formerly classified
evaluations of his squadrons during the Vietnam War. This examination of
his record revealed a pilot who early in his career was cocky,
occasionally cavalier and prone to testing limits.

In today's military, a lapse in judgment that causes a crash can end a
pilot's career. Though standards were looser and crashes more frequent
in the 1960s, McCain's record stands out.

"Three mishaps are unusual," said Michael L. Barr, a former Air Force
pilot with 137 combat missions in Vietnam and an internationally known
aviation safety expert who teaches in USC's Aviation Safety and Security
Program. "After the third accident, you would say: Is there a trend here
in terms of his flying skills and his judgment?"

Jeremiah Pearson, a Navy officer who flew 400 missions over Vietnam
without a mishap and later became the head of human spaceflight at NASA,
said: "That's a lot. You don't want any. Maybe he was just unlucky."

Naval aviation experts say the three accidents before McCain's
deployment to Vietnam probably triggered a review to determine whether
he should be allowed to continue flying. The results of the review would
have been confidential.

The Times asked McCain's campaign to release any military personnel
records in the candidate's possession showing how the Navy handled the
three incidents. The campaign said it would have no comment.