Castro Fox's Accident
Memoirs of Captain (Ret.) VGM Rodolfo Castro Fox, Commander of EA33.
The Precise Moment When the 3-A-303 Breaks the Arresting Cable and Heads Toward the Sea
In that critical instant, the 3-A-303, having engaged the arresting cable, suddenly broke free. The snap was abrupt, and instead of decelerating as expected, the aircraft continued forward. The deck rushed past beneath me, and in those split seconds, I knew the plane was headed off the edge and toward the open sea.
With no time to lose, my reflexes kicked in. My hand was already at the throttle, pushing it to full power in an attempt to regain altitude. The aircraft barely cleared the edge of the flight deck, plummeting toward the water before the engine’s thrust began to pull it back up. That brief but intense moment, where I was suspended between sky and sea, brought every skill and ounce of training to the fore.
The nose of the aircraft, now lowered, shook with oscillating lateral movements due to the immense deceleration it was experiencing as the 14,500-pound plane came to a halt at a relative speed of 100 knots within less than 60 meters. Just in front of me lay the ocean, separated only by a few meters of deck.
Suddenly, at very low speed and reducing the throttle to minimum, my body pressed against the seatback, and my head jerked back into the headrest. The plane had freed itself from the arresting cable as it snapped, and it surged forward. Instinctively, I pushed the throttle to 100 percent—a habit from touch-and-go landings or "bolters" on the deck—believing I was gaining speed.
But this time, I didn’t have enough speed to take off again, as I had once done four years earlier in the same plane. I quickly reduced the throttle and applied right rudder to guide the plane toward the axial runway centerline, aiming to maximize the space to try to brake. There, I would have an additional 50 meters of deck, but the speed was too high, and the plane skidded leftward.
Over the radio, I heard the signal officer shouting, "Eject—Eject!" Instinctively, I pulled the lower ejection seat handle with my right hand. I felt a muffled explosion behind me as the canopy, propelled by the fired cartridge, detached and slid backward. I expected the seat’s rocket to fire next and propel me out—but the seat didn’t eject.
The plane continued its path toward the angled deck’s end; the nose wheel dipped into the edge, and the plane crossed over a 40 mm anti-aircraft mount, sharply turning left as the left wheel was the first to lose contact with the deck. The carrier’s deck disappeared from view; I was plummeting toward the sea from a height of 13 meters, inverted, strapped tightly to the ejection seat by upper and lower harnesses. Less than five seconds had passed since the cable snapped, and I was losing consciousness as we struck the water.
Every action and image from recognizing the emergency as the cable snapped is vivid to me, with time seeming to slow as if in slow motion, until the aircraft hit the sea at dusk.
It was only later that I regained consciousness, being airlifted in a Sea King helicopter to the Puerto Belgrano Naval Hospital, some 100 miles away. Tied to the stretcher, I wondered about my slim chances of surviving a water landing in the dead of night.
I only learned what happened after the crash from the accounts of those involved, as I have no memory of those moments. When the plane hit the water, nose down and inverted, the ejection seat fired, likely launching me like a torpedo toward the seabed, propelled by the rocket that ignited at that moment. Otherwise, I would have gone down with the plane to the ocean floor.
The condition of my left arm evidenced the force with which the seat left the aircraft. My left hand had been on the throttle—a critical mistake during ejection—and my forearm was crushed in the narrow space between the cockpit’s interior side and the side of the ejection seat. As a result, I suffered fractures to the ulna, radius, and humeral tuberosity, as well as a scapulohumeral dislocation.
The seat continued its sequence through the various explosive cartridges, releasing the harness around my torso, inflating the bladders to separate me from the seat, and deploying the pilot chute to extract the parachute. Had this sequence failed, I would have remained strapped to the seat and descended to the seabed.
Dressed as I was in an anti-exposure suit that trapped air between my body and the fabric, along with the rest of my flight gear—torso harness, survival vest, and dry anti-g suit—my body began a slow ascent to the surface due to positive buoyancy. Those who saw me surface after almost two minutes reported that I was paddling with my right arm. Immediately, an Alouette helicopter stationed for rescue, commanded by then-Lieutenant Commander Carlos Espilondo, approached my position. Two rescue swimmers dove into the sea, detached my parachute, and slipped the rescue sling under my shoulders.
They hoisted me up with the helicopter winch and began to transport me; however, I didn’t stay aloft for long. Unconscious and with a dislocated shoulder, my arms rose, causing the sling to slip, and I fell back into the sea. This time, the rescue swimmers had to reach my new position and pull me from beneath the surface, as my now-soaked gear no longer provided positive buoyancy and they hadn’t inflated my life vest.
They attached the sling to the carabiner on my flight suit, designed for such cases, and this time successfully lifted me into the Alouette.
When they placed me on the flight deck, their first move was to remove the water from my lungs. I was quickly transported on a stretcher via the forward elevator on the flight deck to the onboard surgical room.
On the way to the infirmary, I suffered my first cardiorespiratory arrest, from which they successfully revived me.
For a long time, I didn’t respond to external stimuli, and in the operating room, I experienced a second arrest, but again, the medical team managed to bring me back. Days later, the doctors asked if I remembered how they had revived me from these arrests; my denial brought them a sense of relief.
The diagnosis read like a list of battle wounds: multiple trauma, drowning-induced asphyxia, lung shock, cardiorespiratory arrest, cranial trauma with loss of consciousness, bilateral orbital trauma, radial and ulnar fractures, left rib fracture, anterior shoulder dislocation, submental, supra-auricular, and left eyelid wounds, bipalpebral hematoma, conjunctival hemorrhage, and multiple abrasions. This grim report was signed by Lieutenant Commander and Medical Officer Edgar Coria, who, along with the Naval Air Group’s medical team, treated me.
That night, I was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital, where I remained for four days.
Around midnight, Commander Jorge Philippi and his wife Graciela called our apartment in Bahía Blanca to inform Stella of my accident and hospitalization. Months later, I would be the one to inform Graciela of her husband’s disappearance during the Malvinas conflict.
My appearance must have been quite unsettling, with swelling, bruises, stitches, and more. I realized this when visitors who weren’t medical staff would turn pale and quickly leave the ICU. The nurses, using various excuses, refused to provide me with a mirror despite my repeated requests.
Even days later, when I had been moved to a regular room, my children were visibly shaken upon seeing me. If any of them had thought about studying medicine, I likely discouraged that notion. According to specialists, factors that helped prevent neurological sequelae included the cold water and the fact that I had been breathing 100 percent oxygen during the flight. The A-4 lacks a demand system that mixes oxygen with cabin air; instead, it uses a liquid oxygen system with a converter and regulator that delivers pure oxygen.
Perhaps, “Tata Dios” hadn’t planned on calling my number that day—or St. Peter simply made a mistake with the list.
After overcoming the major risk of pulmonary or renal complications, the ordeal of recovering my left arm began. Pins were placed in both bones of my forearm, and I was fitted with a cast that I wore for over three months, constantly adjusted in posture and size.
Declared unfit for flight, I attended medical evaluations every two months, where they noted my recovery from various traumas, abrasions, and interstitial pneumonia, yet my left arm remained restricted in movement. I continued my duties as Deputy Commander at the squadron, but with envy as I watched my fellow pilots take to the skies.
Toward the end of the year, the awards for the 1980 weapons exercises were presented in a ceremony held at the Puerto Belgrano Naval Base Auditorium. I was called up to receive the La Capital of Rosario award for the highest annual individual score in air-to-air shooting among all attack squadron pilots. Seeing me with my arm in a cast, someone joked, “Imagine if he had both arms!”
