After McCain’s Death, a False Claim Resurfaces

In the days after the passing of Sen. John McCain on Aug. 25, a lot of readers have asked about a claim which the Arizona Republican was accountable for the deaths of over a hundred sailors aboard the USS Forrestal. He was not.

The recycled falsehood distorts the truth relating to this July 1967 tragedy off the shore of Vietnam, which we composed around in 2008 when McCain sought the presidency. There’s not any proof McCain was accountable for the collision, which maintained 134 resides, wounded another 161, and nearly killed McCain.

The 1967 fire on the USS Forrestal. Courtesy U.S. National Archives
A site known for promulgating bogus stories replicated the promise nonetheless — citing a decade-old Washington Post fact-checking report as proof.

“John McCain fudged his navy album and desperately attempted to conceal the fact that he’accidentally’ killed 134 American sailors, according to the Washington Post,” starts the Aug. 27 narrative on Your Own News Cable. The piece was printed two days following McCain’s departure, along with also the same or even comparable deceptions that were posted on other sites.

In fact, the 2008 Washington Post narrative never said McCain was accountable for the crash. The area of the piece based on a 1960 airplane crash that was nonfatal from if McCain was in flight school in Corpus Christi.

The Article narrative challenged a statement made in McCain’s autobiography the 1960 crash was a result of engine failure. An official Navy report which has been acquired by the Los Angeles Times discovered which was not the situation. Years after, in July 1967, McCain was aboard the carrier USS Forrestal when a missile that was fired unintentionally by an aircraft struck a different airplane, igniting the mortal flame and explosions.

It was not clear whose airplane the missile struck. McCain said his airplane was struck by the missile, but documents indicated the airplane that was alongside his was struck by it. There is absolutely no assertion that a lieutenant commander, McCain, was to blame for this crash.

As we composed in 2008, the official Navy investigation into the tragedy showed the rocket really misfired from the opposite side of the airport. James M. Casella, a writer and editor who investigated the occasion and got records in the Navy, told us “There is not any possible way John McCain might have led to the fire the Forrestal.”

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The Article narrative made that point too. After mentioning the 1967 tragedy — and the incident months afterward in which his airplane was shot down and he had been captured by the North Vietnamese — that the report notes “U.S. Navy records make clear that no blame could be connected to McCain to both of these episodes.”

The Navy awarded McCain the Silver Star for his”conspicuous gallantry” while he had been imprisoned for almost five-and-a-half decades. He obtained that the Distinguished Flying Cross, three Bronze Stars, two Purple Hearts, and the Prisoner-of-War trophy.

Update, Aug. 29: Once we published this report, Your News Cable upgraded its own headline and narrative to eliminate the false claim that McCain was accountable for the deaths from the 1967 USS Forrestal tragedy. “There is not any evidence for this,” the site stated in its own correction.

Facts Check: Uber Fake