| Date: 3 July 1969 |
| Aircraft type: F-4B Phantom |
| Serial Number: 153015 |
| Military Unit: VF-213 |
| Service: USN |
| Home Base: USS Kitty Hawk |
| Name(s): |
| Lt(jg) Scott Jenkins Shields (Survived) |
| Lt Ross Gary Benn (Survived) |
| Original report: The Kitty Hawk lost a Phantom that went out of control during a reconnaissance escort mission. The probable cause was a control malfunction of some kind, possibly a foreign object jamming the controls. Both the crew ejected safely and were rescued.
Our preferred policy on this site is to add details to the original narrative only from participants or eye-witnesses to an event. Since I (David Lovelady) was in VF-213 when this happened, and I have been unsuccessful in getting the participants to draft their versions, I've decided even my flawed memory would be better than leaving this story out of the database. Here it is: John Tanner and Tom Mitchell, with Scott Shields and Gary Benn (“Goldie”) on the wing, asked for a fly-by. They got to about 450 KCAS. John has said many times that something caused him not to go down really low like he usually did, so they went by at about 200 feet. As they came abeam of the ship on the port side, Scott saw the Master Caution light flashing out of the corner of his eye. As John slowly pulled up and Scotty tried to stay with him, he over-corrected, then he went into PIO (Pilot Induced Oscillation). [Later analysis by the Mishap Board concluded that the Master Caution light was probably indicating that Pitch Aug switch had popped off, and the F-4 was known to be unstable in pitch above 420 KCAS without Pitch Aug.] Each cycle was getting wilder, so, when they headed down on the second cycle, Scotty told Gary to eject. Gary did, but, with the 1.4 second delay between RIO and pilot, the airplane actually bottomed out and started back up before Scott's seat fired. Their chutes blossomed and both looked around for the other one in the short time they had, but neither saw the other. Gary figured Scott would be below him because they were going down when he went out, and Scott figured Gary was below him, but he couldn’t find him. It turns out they were coming down back-to-back. The helo arrived at Scott first. When the swimmer reached him, Scott asked, “Did you get my RIO?” The swimmer said, “No, sir.” Scott was devastated, figuring that Gary had gone out too late on the dive and been out of envelope. He got in the helo and sat dejected and despondent. The helo came to a hover again, but he figured they were just setting down on the deck. Up came the cable, and Gary was there. They had a reunion, so to speak. Gary had thought that Scott had gone out in that same dive but later, so he would not have made it. Because of the high speed ejection, their helmets were ripped off, and their arms and legs flailed. All exposed skin had capillaries broken, so they were bright red, along with their eyeballs. They were grounded, of course, for a couple of weeks. The squadron aircrews that were available would line up each evening to watch them go to chow in Wardroom 3 on the O-3 level. They were bruised and sore from the flailing, and their skin hurt like a bad sunburn. They were in khaki uniforms and would slowly walk down the passageway. At each knee-knocker, they would come to a halt, hold on, try to raise a leg to clear it, and gingerly step through, dragging the second leg through. Then slowly walk to the next one, all the way to the wardroom. At each knee-knocker, the squadron would cheer and applaud when they made it. |
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