Crewman Catapulted Overboard From Ford

As if the USS Ford needs any more problems … 

In an accident described by Navy officials as “a freak combination of factors”, a Navy deck crewman was inadvertently catapulted off the bow of the USS Ford during pierside maintenance activities. 

The ship’s problematic weapon elevators were being tested for the first time after having all been installed but not yet certified.  Unexpectedly, the operation of a single elevator triggered the operation of every elevator.  According to Navy spokesman, Lt. Jack Wang,

Obviously, we did not anticipate this but when the number 4 weapon elevator was triggered with all the other elevators electrically on line, all the elevators simultaneously activated in the same direction.  Just like the EMALS catapults have been found to have to be all up or all down, as a group, the elevators, which use the exact same sequential electric motor concept as EMALS, apparently are linked the same way, through a common weapons elevator capacitor.  If one moves, they all move.  This appears to be a common design flaw with both EMALS and the elevators.  We’re still investigating but it’s clear what happened. (1)

While this elevator flaw was bad enough, the unanticipated massive electromagnetic surge of all 11 elevators activating simultaneously caused an inductive relay activation of the firing circuits of the four EMALS catapults to engage and fired the cats.  Three of the four cats harmlessly fired but on one of the bow cats a deck crewman was sitting on the launch bar attachment trolley and when the cat fired the crewman was carried along and flung off the bow.

We were fortunate that the EMALS capacitor was at a low energy state and the cat shot was not a full speed launch.  It was just fast enough that the crewman couldn’t react in time to roll off but not fast enough to harm him. (1)

The crewman landed in the water about 50 ft in front of the carrier.  He was uninjured and able to swim to the stern where an arresting gear cable that was waiting to be installed was used to pull him back up to the flight deck.

When asked what it felt like to be catapulted, the crewman observed,

There was a surprising amount of vertical oscillation during the launch.  I had seen that on F-35 launches but they told us that problem was fixed.  I’m lucky I didn’t have one of those heavy helmets on that the pilots wear. (1)

Always looking to put a positive spin on things, the Navy spokesman noted,

While the incident was unfortunate, it did demonstrate that Ford’s elevators are all now working. (1)

The spokesman went on to address the aftermath of the incident,

CNO Richardson has already formed a committee, chaired by Admiral Merrill Stubing, to investigate, report, and make recommendations to prevent this from happening again. (1)

Off the record, the spokesman wryly noted,

Unofficially, the crewman is now the only person in the Navy who is credited with a cat and trap without an aircraft. (1)

The incident will have no impact on the Ford’s maintenance availability which is scheduled to be completed in early 2029.

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(1)Broken Defense website, “Ford Catapults Crewman”, Brandi Forall, 1-Apr-2019