Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

The People Behind Aircraft Carrier Operations

Aired October 26, 2001 - 10:35   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: It is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, and lives depend on the crew's precision timing; it must be precise. On deck now to talk about it, CNN's Miles O'Brien.

Miles, good morning to you.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.

It's a 4 1/2-acre deck; they call them flattops. And it's probably per square inch, pound for pound, if you will, the most dangerous workplace in the world or anywhere on the world for that matter.

Let's look at the aircraft carrier and give you a sense of all the jobs that are done there and the precautions that are taken to make sure things are safe there. This one happens to be the Carl Vinson, and you can see some of the aircraft on deck. If you ever wondered who all these people are and what their jobs are, they're all color coded. They're wearing red shirts and they're taking care of bombs. Green shirts -- what do they do? It's a color-coded mission.

And we have a little explainer for you to give you a sense of what everybody's role is on that deck and how they keep things sorted out in a very, very dangerous and busy place.

Let's take a look at some animation. This happens to be number 65 -- CVN-65 is the Enterprise, but this could be any aircraft carrier in those categories because the color coding doesn't change depending on which aircraft carrier you're on. Blue shirts: These are the people who are handling the aircraft from the hangar to bring it up onto the deck. They run the elevators, they drive the tractors; plane handlers, they're called, clearly identified by their blue uniforms.

Moving across the deck: purple. They call these guys grapes, for some obvious reasons. They are fueling aircraft onboard the deck, and are clearly identified by their purple uniform.

Let's go back across the deck. I made reference to the red uniform. The red uniformed people on top of the deck of an aircraft carrier are in charge of the ordinance. That happens to be a missile. They're also attaching one over here. They also will get involved in search-and-rescue operations, crash and salvage type of situations. And they're involved in weapons disposal and the tail end of missions as well. Obviously, hazardous duty there. Now let's move it along to the actual aircraft. As it gets a little closer for launch the brown shirts are the plane bosses -- not the air boss -- don't want to confuse things -- the plane captains. They are the ones responsible for doing the checks on that aircraft, making sure it's ready for flight. They sort of sign off on the aircraft, if you will, for the aviator inside.

And then as we move a little closer to the time to launch off an aircraft carrier, it hands over to the people in the yellow shirts. They guide it from that parking space into sequence for launch. There are aircraft handling officers, catapult and resting gear officers. And they direct the planes with a series of intricate hand signals.

They are aided by the green-shirted folks, who are catapult and arresting gear officers as well. They're cargo handling personnel. And they're so=called hook-runners as well. They get involved when it comes time for the plane to come back onto the aircraft carrier and be captured by the cables which string across it with the tailhook.

So then the aircraft gets into position. This one happens to be an F-14, and these plane handlers are in this position. They wait for a salute from the pilot in -- onboard. And watch what happens: The yellow-jerseyed plane handler hits the deck. The signal goes through from the green jersey, and off they go. And this can happen on an aircraft carrier every 30 seconds.

Let's bring in General Don Shepperd, who's done this many times. He's been onboard an aircraft carrier, has landed on them and has launched from them.

How dangerous a place is it, general?

MAJ. GEN. DON SHEPPERD (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It's one of the most dangerous workplaces in America, Miles. And a disclaimer here: I've ridden in the back seat with Navy pilots, who are the experts doing this, in T-2s and TA-4s off the Lexington both day and night.

It's extremely dangerous. Think of a steel mill -- everybody's got an image of a steel mill -- and think of it moving at 30 knots with a 30 knot wind, giving you 60 knots of wind, and pitching and 10 and 20 and 30-foot waves day and night. These are special people in a dangerous, dangerous business.

O'BRIEN: All right, it's -- we often think about how dangerous it is to actually land on there, especially at night and with the pilots. But we shouldn't downplay how difficult a job it is to choreograph this whole operation on a deck.

SHEPPERD: Indeed. The air boss is the choreography, if you will -- the man with the baton up there watching. That's on of the reasons for all these colored shirts. He has to be able to see who's doing what, what's going wrong and direct it from the bridge.

Again, this is intense, intense work. I remember landing on the carrier, and 30 seconds to get out of the hook and get it back in place for another aircraft landing right behind us. The deck was wet, and a 19-year-old kid motioning us to come quickly over to the side, our nose over to the side. I'll tell you what, it gets your attention.

O'BRIEN: All right. An aircraft carrier is not a place to not have full attention. General Don Shepperd, our military analyst, thanks very much for helping us understand how it all works. And we thank our animation department for an excellent view of how things work on a flattop -- Bill.

HEMMER: Very good stuff, Miles; very interesting. And certainly, as you pointed, out very dangerous, too, if not done properly.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com