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Watch This Terrifying Botched Aircraft Carrier Landing

Eight seamen were injured in the incident, but no one was killed.

To a movie-going public accustomed to portrayals of Navy pilots as charismatic and super-competent top guns, a landing on an aircraft carrier may not seem like a big deal. But every such landing is actually a knuckle-biting experience for at least a few seconds, and combined tech and human error can sometimes turn these high-stakes situations into tragedies. That's what happened in this tense video made on the USS Eisenhower in March of this year.

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Carrier landings are tough at any time and require remarkable precision on the part of the pilot. They require special practice with a low-speed, carefully angled approach, because for the flight crew it's parking on a dime—they only have about 500 feet max to come to a proper stop. Any plane equipped to land on a carrier sports a tailhook to grab steel cables roped across their path, cables that are tethered to cylinders anchored to the flight deck. If all goes well, the tailhook meets the wire, the wire absorbs the momentum and the hydraulics in the anchoring cylinders rein in the considerable energy from the large, heavy, speeding object.

The Virginian-Pilot reported that this E-2C Hawkeye surveillance aircraft was coming in for a landing when a cable snapped snapped, injuring eight sailors. Several were life-flighted to treatment at a facility in Norfolk, VA. All suffered from broken bones, fractures, and at least one had a serious brain injury.

The Pilot was able to obtain a Navy report on the incident and found that the incident was caused by human error. Maintenance personnel tasked with caring for the engine that controls flight deck cables dropped the ball, and the cables didn't have the proper tension to snag the Hawkeye's tailhook and hold.

The Hawkeye's pilots showed real Top Gun spirit in saving their plane from nose-diving into the ocean after the failed landing. The Navy found that the crew demonstrated "phenomenal airmanship" in pulling out safely before they managed to fly on to a safe landing at Norfolk Naval Station.

The Navy found that in order to hopefully avoid such incidents in the future, there would need to be extra steps added into cable maintenance procedures, including additional "warnings, cautions and quality assurance," according to the Virginia newspaper.