1965 Philippine Sea A-4 incident
Attack Squadron VA-56, Carrier Air Wing Five Douglas A-4E Skyhawk · Pre-flight human error
Event
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Incident
- Event fatalities
- 1 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- Occupants
- Unknown
- Survivors
- Unknown
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Military
Douglas A-4E Skyhawk
- Aircraft type
- Douglas A-4
- Category
- Airplane · from aircraft type
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- BuNo 151022
- Onboard fatalities
- 1
- Route
- From not recordedTo not recorded
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
The 1965 Philippine Sea A-4 crash was a Broken Arrow incident in which a United States Navy Douglas A-4E Skyhawk attack aircraft carrying a nuclear weapon fell into the sea off Japan from the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga (CV-14). The aircraft, pilot and weapon were never recovered.
The accident
On 5 December 1965, 31 days after Ticonderoga's departure from U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay in the Philippines, the attack jet was pushed backwards over the side, off the number 2 elevator during a training exercise while being rolled from the number 2 hangar bay to the elevator. The pilot, Lieutenant (junior grade) Douglas M. Webster; the aircraft, Douglas A-4E BuNo 151022 of VA-56; and the B43 nuclear bomb were never recovered from the 16000 ft depth. The accident was said to occur 68 mi from Kikai Island, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan.
Ticonderoga had aboard Carrier Air Wing Five during this cruise, with two squadrons of Skyhawks. The lost aircraft was part of Attack Squadron 56 (VA-56); VA-144 was the other.
Text from the Wikipedia article “1965 Philippine Sea A-4 incident” (revision 1370377335, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
Sources
Wikipedia article: 1965 Philippine Sea A-4 incident
- Revision
- 1370377335 · 2026-08-20 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q4571991
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "1965 Philippine Sea A-4 incident" (page 36039398, revision 1370377335)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports)
- Operation
- Reviewed correction (2026-09-26): A US Navy attack jet of Attack Squadron 56 aboard an aircraft carrier: a military aircraft. The article: "a United States Navy Douglas A-4E Skyhawk attack aircraft carrying a nuclear weapon fell into the sea"
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities
- Ground fatalities
- not stated in the Wikipedia infobox
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (1)
- Wikipedia · Facts from the Wikipedia article's infobox and coordinates, not checked against an investigation report. Independent review pending.