On a crisp fall afternoon, the US Air Force Vodka 51, a modified McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II,
took off from an Italian airbase for a routine joint exercise with the US Navy.
During Exercise 87, the Phantom had to find a Navy carrier and engage in a fake training attack,
all before the Navy's Grumman F-14 Tomcat fighters could spot them.
Per the official proceedings, the Tomcats had to fly close enough
to the Phantoms to read their hull numbers to win and end the exercise.
However, one Navy pilot would do much more than that on that fateful day.
In an act that both branches called deliberate, illogical, and a lapse of judgment,
the 25-year old pilot engaged his counterpart with an actual sidewinder missile,
and the consequences were disastrous.
Incidentally, it was all captured on the aircraft's Head-Up-Display…
Exercise 87
In late September of 1987, Vodka 51,
a McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II, departed from an Italian airbase in the Mediterranean.
Crewed by Captain Michael Ross and Weapons Systems Officer 1st Lieutenant Randy Sprouse of the 26th
Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, the aircraft was taking part in Exercise Display Determination 87.
During the exercise, the Phantom’s crew was searching for a supposed enemy carrier,
in this case the US Navy’s USS Saratoga.
All the Phantom had to do was find the carrier and engage in an exercise attack
before the carrier's F-14 Tomcat fighters spotted it, as the Navy assets were tasked
with defending their carrier and preventing it from being located.
The modified Phantom was an RF-4 version with Tactical Electronic Reconnaissance,
a system that provided the aircraft with enabled detection of electronic noises emanating from
several sources, thus allowing it to find the massive Saratoga carrier and her aircraft.
After flying across Italy and into the Mediterranean ocean,
Ross's first order of business was to hit a tanker aircraft for airborne refueling.
As soon as the Tomcats took off from the USS Saratoga's carrier deck,
the fighters were immediately notified that the vessel's radar had picked up a signal
from an Illinois Air National Guard Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker that was refueling an RF-4C Phantom.
Consequently, the Tomcats were ordered to head towards it,
and they arrived just as the Phantom was finishing refueling.
Despite closing in, one of the F-14 Tomcats, piloted by 25-year old Lieutenant Timothy Dorsey,
was not able to approach it as intended.
Meanwhile, Ross and Sprouse went looking for their naval target.
However, their scanners suddenly malfunctioned and they decided to carry
on with the mission visually, spotting the enemy fleet 22 miles out to sea.
Little did they know that the venture would turn into a nightmare.
Attack
As both Air Force and Navy aircraft approached each other,
Ross began his simulated attack run as planned.
According to the war exercise rules, Tomcats only had to fly close enough
to the Air Force aircraft to read their hull numbers, which would count as a hit.
Dorsey was following the Phantom close enough and informed USS Saratoga of the upcoming faux attack.
Following protocol, Lieutenant Dorsey requested the carrier to issue instructions.
Saratoga then emitted the exercise's command to engage: [QUOTE]: "Red and free on your contact."
The training exercise called for Dorsey to shoot a simulated missile, and he was supposed
to lock up the target with the aircraft's AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile's infrared tracker.
However, in the heat of the moment, a confused Dorsey asked his Radar Intercept Officer,
Lieutenant Command Edmund Holland,
if the men aboard USS Saratoga really wanted them to shoot at the Phantom.
Holland thought the young pilot was kidding and responded affirmatively,
yelling over his headset: [QUOTE]: "Yes-shoot!"
Immediately after, Lieutenant Dorsey fired his first sidewinder, but failed.
However, the second shot went off without a hitch,
successfully shooting down a United States Navy aircraft during a training exercise.
The Radar Intercept Officer was shocked when he heard the sound of a missile-firing alert;
his crewmate had just shot down a Phantom!
The distressing incident was caught on the Tomcat's Head-Up-Display. The blurry footage
shows how the pilot is aiming at the Phantom, and you can hear the crew talking to each other.
After the first missile fails to launch, Dorsey shoots another, and the video cuts
right as the weapon hits the Phantom, followed by an explosion as it starts to go down…
Aftermath
As fire lights flashed aboard the Air Force Phantom,
the aircraft began to shake itself into pieces.
Luckily, Ross and Sprouse managed to escape and ejected into 500-knot winds.
The two crewmembers descended silently on their
parachutes mere moments before a fireball engulfed the aircraft and burned it whole.
Half an hour after touching down and watching the aircraft sink into the ocean,
the Phantom duo was rescued by USS Saratoga.
Onboard the carrier that was their simulated target only minutes before,
the men were treated to emergency care and a solid meal.
Sadly, Ross never recovered from a spine injury during the incident.
And after a long series of surgeries and physical therapy,
the once-promising officer was forced to retire in 1997, with his spine constantly deteriorating.
One year after the Navy F-14 Tomcat shot down an Air Force Phantom reconnaissance
jet over the Mediterranean Sea, the US Navy released an investigation report.
Eventually declassified under the Freedom of Information Act, the report blamed the
incident on a basic error in judgment and an illogical action taken by the 25-year-old Navy
fighter pilot, who had barely surpassed 245 hours of flight time in the F-14 fighter.
According to the report: [QUOTE] ″The September 22, 1987, destruction of USAF RF-4C ... was not
the result of an accident, but the consequence of a deliberate act. Dorsey's subsequent reaction
(to the radio command) demonstrated an absolute disregard of the known facts and circumstances.”
The document also states that Dorsey failed to follow the correct protocol
taught during training and reacted in a purely mechanical manner,
adding that his performance raised substantial doubts as to his capacity for sound judgment.
The findings were accepted by the commander of Cruiser-Destroyer Group
Eight Rear Admiral Jeremy Boorda, who ordered the inquiry in the first place.
Along with the report, Vice Admiral Kendall Moranville, then head of the Navy's 6th Fleet,
released a statement saying: [QUOTE] "We necessarily rely
on the self-discipline and judgment of pilots to prevent such incidents...Nothing,
in my opinion, can mitigate Lieutenant Dorsey’s basic error in judgment."
In the wake of the terrible and highly preventable incident,
both military branches decided to implement new rules to avert another such occurrence.
The Navy ordered all F-14 pilots to verbally notify their radar intercept officers whenever
their aircraft's weapons were loaded, as Dorsey's crewmate had no idea that the
pilot had actually armed the missiles and was not just pretending to aim and shoot.
The report also signaled a new rule that ensured Navy fighters wouldn't launch
off aircraft carriers for military exercises with Air Force jets carrying loaded weapons.
After being disciplined for his lapse in judgment, Dorsey was permanently stripped
of his flying status, preventing him from ever flying a Navy aircraft again.
However, Dorsey was never asked to resign. And after being transferred to a job ashore,
the former pilot remained in the Navy,
first as an intelligence officer and then in the Naval Reserves.
In 2012, he was on the shortlist for a possible promotion to Rear Admiral,
a decision that required Senate confirmation. However, the Senate never responded to the
nomination, effectively ending any chance to earn a higher rank.
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