After making four passes over the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Essex, a wing of the Tu-16 Badger clipped the sea on the final pass, resulting in a crash that left no survivors
Colonel Andrey Pliyev’s Soviet Air Force Tu-16 Badger-F buzzed the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Essex (CV-9) in the Norwegian Sea on May 25, 1968. After four passes, a wing of the Tu-16 clipped the sea, causing it to crash without any survivors. Parts of three bodies were recovered by the US.
According to the video in this article, the bomber appears to vanish into the sunny haze of the horizon following the initial low flyby, but it later reappears. And as it does so, it seems to slow down as it soars further lower. Because it is flying so slowly and low, it seems to be nearly parallel to the carrier’s deck as it passes.
At the 27-second mark, the video pauses, maybe to indicate the point where something went wrong. The Tu-16 banks up and vanishes momentarily once more into the haze but in the opposite direction. It comes back into view, flying perpendicular to the aircraft carrier on the horizon this time. The video then cuts to show the sailors and airmen on the carrier’s deck, obviously focused on what’s happening at sea. A column of heavy, dark smoke is visible in the distance.
A second Tu-16 can be seen flying around at the end, presumably trying to figure out what happened to the other plane.
Former USS Essex crew member Stephen Garbarini was present at the accident. He recalls: ‘I was there on the flight deck. I was an aircraft electrician in VS 34. I remember him coming over the flight deck from starboard to port, flying a couple hundred yards, and appeared to have stalled, hitting his starboard wing tip, cartwheeling, and exploding. We were launching planes and had helos up as plane guards; they went right over to the crash site to see if they could help to no avail.’
Another ex-USS Essex crew member recalls: ‘I was there and watched the entire thing while working on the flight deck. I was a helicopter mechanic in HS-9 at the time. When it overflew the flight deck, you could feel the heat and smell at jet exhaust. After the flight deck overfly (starboard to port), he continued to fly away from the ship at low level. He gained a little altitude and started to make a left turn, leveled back out, lost altitude, and just when it looked like he was going to make a controlled ditching his left wing dipped and hit the water, and then he cartwheeled in a ball of flame.. Our helicopters were in the air already and made a beeline for the crash, hovered in the smoke but no one survived.’
Footage from The National Archives in Washington.
