February 16, 2010 — If 115 feet of two-inch-thick steel cable were coming straight at you, would your training and/or reflexes save you?
Aircraft carrier arresting cables are designed to stop 50,000-pound F-18 Hornets, arriving on deck at 200 mph, in 400 feet. Given the endless safety precautions taken on board, it’s rare that an arresting cable fails … but it happens. Here’s the evidence in this short video clip of a 2003 event aboard the USS George Washington (CVN 73), which happened to be captured by a National Geographic film crew.
It pays to stay alert…
Tom Posey