Here is a closer look at those three incidents: McCain’s commanders sarcastically dubbed him “Ace McCain” because of his string of pre-Vietnam accidents, recalled Maurice Rishel, who commanded McCain’s VA-65 squadron in early 1961, when it was deployed in the Mediterranean. On another occasion, McCain was selected to make a commemorative landing on the Enterprise and had his picture taken in front of a cake in the officers’ galley, Furr said.
He was invited to the captain’s cabin for dinner on the maiden voyage of the Enterprise in 1962, a perk other aviators and sailors attributed to his famous name, recalled Gene Furr, an enlisted man who shared an office and went on carrier deployments with McCain over three years. McCain, the son and grandson of admirals, had a privileged status in the Navy. “What was interesting was that he got into accidents, and it didn’t rattle his nerves. “In his military career, he was a risk-taker and a daredevil,” said John Karaagac, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies and the author of a book on McCain. The young McCain has often been described as undisciplined and fearless - a characterization McCain himself fostered in his autobiography.
And when you are out there, you take risks.” They don’t get out on the edges, but the edges are where you get the maximum out of yourself and out of your plane. “There are some naval aviators who are on the cautious side. Hawkins, who flew with McCain’s VA-44 squadron in the 1960s and now teaches political science at Florida Atlantic University.
“John was what you called a push-the-envelope guy,” said Sam H. Navy veterans who flew with McCain called him a good pilot. The campaign said it would have no comment. 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 results of the review would have been confidential. 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. 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. “After the third accident, you would say: Is there a trend here in terms of his flying skills and his judgment?” 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. “Three mishaps are unusual,” said Michael L. Though standards were looser and crashes more frequent in the 1960s, McCain’s record stands out. In today’s military, a lapse in judgment that causes a crash can end a pilot’s career. This examination of his record revealed a pilot who early in his career was cocky, occasionally cavalier and prone to testing limits. 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. But he has been less forthcoming about his mistakes in the cockpit. He was not faulted in either of those cases and was later lauded for his heroism as a prisoner of war.Īs a presidential candidate, McCain has cited his military service - particularly his 5 1/2 years as a POW. Three months later, he was shot down during a bombing mission over Hanoi and taken prisoner. In another incident, in 1965, McCain crashed a T-2 trainer jet in Virginia.Īfter McCain was sent to Vietnam, his plane was destroyed in an explosion on the deck of an aircraft carrier in 1967. 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.
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