USS Oriskany fire

USS Oriskany fire

Smoke visible from the burning USS Oriskany in the Gulf of Tonkin, 26 October 1966
Time	About 7:28 a.m. local time
Date	26 October 1966
Location	Gulf of Tonkin
44 dead
156 injured

The 1966 USS Oriskany Fire was a major fire that broke out aboard the Essex-class aircraft carrier USS Oriskany on the morning of 26 October 1966. The fire broke out after a lit flare was locked in a flare locker. The fire killed 44 people, mostly air crew, and injured 156 more. It was the first of three major fires to befall American carriers during the Vietnam War.

Oriskany departed San Diego for her second Vietnam deployment, and third wartime deployment, on 26 May 1966. The carrier arrived on station off the coast of Vietnam a few weeks later, and commenced operations in support of operations in Vietnam.

At approximately 0728 hours, as Oriskany was preparing to begin flight operations and stowing ordnance from night operations, an alarm was sounded for a fire in compartment A-107-M, a flare locker, containing over 250 MK-24 magnesium flares and 2.75 inch rocket warheads, located just off the forward hangar deck, adjacent to the Starboard sponson. A flare had inadvertently ignited, and the sailor handling the flare threw it into the locker and dogged the door shut. General quarters was sounded, and firefighting teams began to attempt to cool the area near the burning locker; because the high pressure within the locker made it impossible to open the locker door, fighting the fire directly was impossible. About 10 minutes into the fire, the pressure became so great that the doors blew out, igniting a helicopter located on the port side forward of the hangar deck. With the ship headed into the wind, getting ready to launch aircraft, the heat and smoke were drawn forward into the berthing quarters located forward of the hangar bay. Other sailors in the area worked to move aircraft, many of which were bomb and fuel laden, from the hangar to the flight deck to prevent them from catching fire. On deck six, in a pump room servicing the forward elevator, the sailor on duty attempted to close the large air vents servicing the compartment, which were starting to blow smoke in; unable to do so, he used wet rags to protect himself. Closer to the fire, sailors began attempting to evacuate "officers' country", a series of staterooms occupied largely by pilots assigned to Oriskany's air wing.

Within five minutes, an explosion occurred in the flare locker, the result of multiple flares igniting at once. Aircraft in the hangar bay caught fire, and nearby sailors attempting to cool the area were burned. Down in officers' country, several men were killed when a fireball shot down the passageway, burning their lungs. Other personnel suffocated to death in the passageways. On the flight deck, firefighting crews worked feverishly to cool the steel deck, while other flight deck personnel began pushing ordnance off the flight deck. Down in the hangar, the aircraft that caught fire were pushed over the side, along with ordnance that was staged on the hangar from an earlier replenishment.