One Rocket, 134 Dead: How USS Forrestal Became a Floating Inferno

Emergencies and Natural Disasters · Jul 24, 2026 · 23m

One Rocket, 134 Dead: How USS Forrestal Became a Floating Inferno

Heat, aged explosives and a single stray rocket turned a routine launch into a catastrophe that killed 134 sailors; how could every safety system fail at once and leave no enemy in sight? What combination of degraded bombs, procedural change and a decision to keep munitions on deck made the Forrestal into a tinderbox?

In this episode, we lay out the sequence of events on the morning of July 29, 1967 and the days that led up to it, following the ship’s transit from Norfolk and the transfer of degraded AN-M65A1 bombs at Subic Bay…