Anyone who has worked the flight deck will feel the hairs stand up on their neck with that Intruder Intake video. I've seen it many times and it still terrible. That might have happened when I was in (85-91) but not VA-85 thankfully.
Happened on Roosevelt in 91 on Cat 4. I was in Ready 1 sitting the alert and watched it happen on the LLTV. He was on the ships TV the next day, still pretty deaf. Lucky lucky guy.
You folks that worked the flight deck day and night in good weather and bad deserve a whole lot of credit. I went up there during flight ops only to get to the jet and then via the most direct path!
When I got a new baby RIO I always told them before we walked up on the flight deck to man up, "you stay right behind me, close enough that you can touch me on the shoulder until we get to the jet. After we land if you beat me unstrapping (pretty unlikely) you don't go anywhere and then stay right behind me 'til we're off the deck."
Nowadays, when I'm briefing our student naval aviators for for their CQ simulators, that if they have to shut down and swap jets I tell them once again to not go anywhere without one of the "yellow shirts" (flight deck directors) or one of the plane captains.
I saw some really, really horrendous injuries/incidents one the flight deck. Heavy machinery, some of it moving fast and pink little bodies don't mix very well.
