Watch the USS Forrestal Disaster Unfold

On July 29, 1967, disaster struck aboard the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal during combat operations off Vietnam when a rocket accidentally fired across the flight deck, striking a fueled and armed aircraft. The resulting explosions and fires tore through the carrier, killing 134 sailors, injuring more than 160 others, and leaving the ship badly damaged. The tragedy became one of the deadliest accidents in U.S. Navy history and forever changed the way the Navy approached flight-deck safety, firefighting, and damage control.

Using original archival footage, our video takes you directly aboard USS Forrestal on the morning of the disaster and shows the moment the incident began. Watch the events unfold through historic film captured that day and see the courage of the sailors who fought desperately to save their ship and their shipmates.

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