PENSACOLA, Fla. -- A Navy pilot attempting his first landing on an aircraft carrier was approaching too 'low and slow' when he crashed into the USS Lexington, killing five people and injuring 19 others, the ship's commander said.
The T-2 Buckeye jet being flown by Ensign Stephen Pontell turned upside down as it approached the carrier Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico, Capt. C. 'Flack' Logan said. One wing was ripped off when it struck the Lexington's 'island,' the structure containing the ship's bridge.
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'It cartwheeled alongside the island structure and then crashed just forward the bridge where the No. 1 one catapult is and it started to burn right there,' Logan told a news conference.
'As I see it, (Pontell) ended up in a position which in naval aviation is known as being 'low and slow,' which is a very terrible place to be when you're coming aboard a ship,' the commander said. 'It means you're below the correct altitude and that you're airspeed isn't where it's supposed to be.'
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Logan said it was Pontell's first attempt at landing on an aircraft carrier.
The Navy was investigating the exact cause of the accident, which occurred about 3:30 p.m. CST in the gulf about 30 miles south of Pensacola.
Logan said the sea was calm and winds were about 32 mph at the time of the crash, and Pontell was in a 'very disciplined approach' until the final seconds.
'They were telling him to add power and told him to wave off, and for whatever reason the aircraft was not capable of doing that,' Logan said. 'He got in the backside of the power curve and the aircraft's nose pitched up and he lost control.'
Five people were killed, including Pontell, three flight deck members and one civilian who worked for Dyncorp, a defense contractor. 'The total number between fatalities and injuries is probably going to end up around 24 if you count everybody who injures themselves in any way,' Logan said.
Lt. Cmdr. Jack Ross, who was in the Landing Signal Officer platform, estimated that Pontell was traveling between 90 mph and 100 mph as he approached the carrier, instead of the normal speed of 110 mph. Pontell was thrown from the plane, and it was unclear whether he had tried to eject.
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Fires began within 12 seconds of the crash, but were quickly extinguished, Logan said. Parts of the plane struck three other planes on the deck, causing major damage to two and minor damage to one.
'It looked like a battlezone,' said Lt. Bruce Adams, the ship's medical officer. He said he came to the deck and saw bodies 'spread everywhere.'
All of the fatalities on the deck suffered burns, Adams said. 'The head of the flames was intense,' he said. 'The bodies that I saw ... you could tell by the nature of the burns it was very intense heat.'
The Lexington, an 889-foot, World War II-era vessel that had a crew of 1,400 at the time of the crash, is used exclusively for training in carrier landings. The T-2 Buckeye jet is the primary training jet used by the Navy. The vessel returned to its home port of Pensacola Monday morning.
Besides Pontell, 23, of Columbia, Md., who was stationed at Meridian Naval Air Station, the dead were Aviation Boatswain's Mate 3rd Class Burnett Kilgore Jr., 19, of Holly Springs, Miss.; Aviation Boatswain's Mate 3rd Class Timmy L. Garroutte, 30, of Memphis, Tenn.; Airman Lisa L. Mayo, 25, of Oklahoma City, and Dyncorp Byron Gervis Courvelle, age unavailable, of Meridian.
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Two sailors were hospitalized and another 17 people suffered minor injuries ranging from smoke inhalation to eye burns.
On Monday, the deck of the Lexington showed few signs of the tragedy. The wing of the Buckeye was still lodged in the island and its fuselage was covered with a parachute.
After the Lexington docked, hundreds of family members and friends of the crew stood on the dock and scanned the deck of the vessel, looking for loved ones as the ship pulled into its downtown pier.
'Where's Scott?' Linda Gray called out to someone on the ship she recognized. Moments later her husband came into view. Tears began streaming down her face. 'I just want him off the ship, off the flight deck. I'm going to talk to him about it,' she said.
Since April, at least 60 sailors have died in serious accidents aboard Navy vessels, including the April 19 gun turret explosion aboard the USS Iowa that killed 47 crew members, the May 9 fire aboard the Navy combat supply ship White Plains that killed six and the May 14 fuel pump explosion and fire on the aircraft carrier USS America that killed two crew members.
