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A Hard Landing
This is a set of pictures taken by PH2 L. J. Cera showing Lt(jg) Terry Kryway's hard landing on 21 October 1961. His squadron, VF-11, was aboard USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVA-42) near the Dominican Republic. Due to bad weather and pitching deck, Lt Kryway's F8U-1 Crusader slammed hard on the deck and caught the wire. Because of the force of the impact, the starboard main wheel broke off and bounced up into the well, rupturing a fuel line. A cloud of fuel can be seen on this picture:
With the right wheel torn off, the aircraft's nose swung to the right, placing an asymetrical load on the tailhook. This resulted in the hook disengaging from the wire and releasing the aircraft. At the same time, the fuel ignited.
The Crusader raced down the deck, trailing flames and with nothing to slow it down. Lt Kryway applied power again but felt nothing as the engine flamed out.
Just as the aircraft was going overboard, he can be seen reaching for the ejection handle.
He was ejected a split second before the Crusader impacted the water.
The last pictures show the parachute opening to slow down his fall into the water.
Luckily, Terry Kryway was very quickly picked up and escaped unharmed from the accident, with nothing more than some abrasions on the neck from the seat harness. According to his squadron mates, Kryway was an excellent pilot and was not responsible for the accident. Weather conditions were such that the accident could have happened to any pilot. The pictures taken by Cera were rapidly distributed throughout the fleet to show pilots that the Martin-Baker ejection seat that equipped the Crusader was trustworthy and could save a pilot from the flight deck's altitude. Sources:
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