I was on the Midway in Jan 66 and we had two incidents that definitely standout. The first was an F4 that had a hook skip and he went off the angle. Everyone on deck knew he was going in the water and started running to the port side. I was about 1/2 way across the deck and this huge wall of water came over the side. Then the nose of the plane barely came over deck level and you could tell that he was on the verge of a stall. Good old over powered F4 managed to claw its way back into the air and the pilot came back around and made a normal landing.
The second was a cold cat shot on a Spad (A1E Skyraider). The cat officer touched the deck and they hit the control for the cat. It went about 1/2 way down the track and stopped. The A1 was going to fast to stop but not fast enough to actually get airborne. He rolled off the deck and dropped like a brick. As usual everyone on deck ran to the deck edge and everyone got a huge surprise. The A1 was sitting just far enough out of the water that the prop was creating a huge spray. I don't know exactly how long the plane stayed like that, but it finally started to slowly climb and the pilot was able to land.
Pretty sure both pilots needed showers and clean undies.
Oh, one of our officers was on the boat when a cable broke. He lost the lower part of his left leg but managed to stay in, which back then was very unusual.
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