About as close to landing as you can get without doing so...Pilot just kept doing his job when the cable snapped. 8 men injured and a Greyhound transport and Seahawk helicopter damaged.
Nah, the approach was fine. The crew that was repairing the arresting gear engine screwed the pooch. Apparently they "forgot" some critical steps when clearing a fault with the engine. Sooo...The next plane to come in, the E-2C, lands, snags a cable, and the cable just keeps paying out until it two-blocks. At which point, all the load is transferred from the engine to the cable; the cable not being meant to take such a heavy load, of course, snaps. The pilot, as per his training was keeping full power on both engines, just in case of such an eventuality, so that he could get airborne again...So, in a sense...Yes, the pilot meant to do exactly that.
One could hardly say "I meant to do that" when the cause - the cable breaking - was not something the pilot did
