The KittyHawk interception 
  
  The Real Story of the USS Kitty Hawk Incident  
  Source: Military E-Mail  
  Published: 9 December 2000 Author: U.S. Navy F/A-18 Pilot  
  Posted on 12/13/2000 17:32:15 PST by Spook86  
  Note: The following is an eyewitness account of the recent  Russian "buzzing" of the USS Kitty Hawk in the Sea of Japan. It was  written by a U.S. Navy F/A-18 pilot who was on the carrier at the time  of the incident. I received this via e-mail from a military colleague  who, in turn, verified that it came from the Kitty Hawk. It makes for  interesting reading, and provides a remarkable account of the absolute  buffoonery that took place during the incident. Comments in brackets  were added to clarify or explain military jargon  
  
  Flying **** : -Cruise was pretty easy and interesting: 54 days at sea, 40  
  traps [carrier landings], and 45 [flying] hours in the month of October  
  alone! Yes, we flew our asses off! Since I'm one of three department  heads with all my quals I fly a lot. Here's an interesting story (this  is a no  
  sh---er). I was on the bridge in line to drive the ship as there are a bunch  
  of O-5s and a few O-4s earning our "coming alongside" qual. It's a gay  shoe boy ***** where you give commands to the helm and lee helm (that's  the throttle, dude) and you're actually flying formation on the  replenishment ship during UNREPS [underway replenishment ops]. You do  this under the close supervision of the Captain of the ship and the CDO  (command duty officer--an O-5, usually the navigator or assistant  navigator).  
  
  Anyways, I'm sitting there bullsh-----g with my XO [executive officer]  who is also getting his qual and we hear on the CO's squawk box a call  from CIC (Combat Info Center). They said "sir, we're getting  indications of Russian fighter activity." His response was "launch the  alert fighters." Combat told him the highest alerts were Alert 30s  [launch within 30 minutes of notification]. The Captain got p---ed and  said "launch everything we've got ASAP." I ran to the navigator's phone  and called the SDO [squadron duty officer]. Our squadron didn't have  alert duty that day, bummer, so I told him to find out who did and get  their ass moving up to the flight deck (only Alert 7s are actually  sitting on the flight deck, ready to go; alert 30s means you are in the  ready room).  
  
  Anyways, 40 minutes after the CO called away the alerts, a Russian  SU-27 Flanker [air superiority fighter--similar to a U.S. F-15] and  SU-24 [strike fighter, akin to an F-111] Fencer made a 500 knot, 200  foot pass directly over the tower of the Kitty Hawk...it was just like  in Top Gun, shoes on the bridge spilled coffee and everyone said "H--y  S---!. I looked at the Captain at this point and his face was red. He  looked like he just walked in on his wife getting boned by a Marine.  The Russian fighters made two more high speed, low altitude passes  before we finally launched the first aircraft off the deck...a EA-6B  Prowler [electronic warfare aircraft]. That's right...we launched a  f-----g Prower and he ended up in a 1 versus 1 with the Flanker just in  front of the ship. The Flanker was all over his ass (kind of like a  bear batting around a little bunny right before he eats it). He was  screaming for help when finally an [F/A-18] Hornet from our sister  squadron (I use this term in the literal sense because they looked like  a bunch of f-----g girls playing with the Russians) got off the deck  and made the intercept. It was too late. The entire crew watched  overhead as the Russians made a mockery of our feeble attempt to  intercept them. The funny part of the story was the  
  Admiral and the CAG [Carrier Air Group Commander] were in their morning  meeting in the war room and they were interrupted by the thundering  roar of Russians buzzing the tower. A CAG staff dude told me they  looked at each other and our airplan, noticed we didn't have any  flights scheduled until a few hours later, and said "what was that?"  
  
  Four days later, the Russian intelligence agency e-mailed the CO of the  Kitty Hawk and enclosed pictures they had taken of our dudes scrambling  around the flight deck, frantically trying to get airborne. I'm quite  sure the f-----g loser shoe boy [black shoe=ship driver/surface warfare  officer] in charge of our battle group's air defense was fired. It's  also ironic that the Admiral's change-of-command occurred just a few  weeks prior to this incident. Anyways, the Russians tried to come out a  few other times, and we were more than ready. I personally intercepted  an IL-38 May [anti-submarine wargfare aircraft] and shoved my wingtip  in front of his windscreen to prevent him from turning towards the ship  (yeah, yeah we're friends now, blow me).  In typical Navy Senior officer knee jerk fashion our entire airwing  stood alerts around the clock as if WWIII was going to break out  anytime. This story was plasteredall over Russian and Japanese  newspapers yesterday. The Russians even awarded their aircrew medals  for their achievement. What f-----g shame! I felt like I was on the Bad  News Bears and we got our asses kicked, and I didn't even get off the  bench to help the team. 
  
  Source: USNI Proceedings, January 2003 issue, page 66