I believe that an aircraft carrier flight, during flight operations is the most dangerous work place on earth. There is the risk of being sucked into an engine as you saw on the video. There is also the risk of being blown over the side by jet exhaust, nearly a 100 foot fall into the ocean. Then there is the risk of fire and/or explosion when the aircraft are being fueled or armed. If you are the pilot, there is the risk of a landing accident such as a ramp strike. And there is my favorite, a cold cat shot. A cold cat shot happens when the catapult crew doesn't set the catapult energy high enough to match the the aircrafts gross take off rate. All Navy aircraft have a little square of black paint in which the aircraft crew chief chalks the gross take off weight of the aircraft. When the aircraft taxis onto the catapult, the cat crew sets the catapult energy to match the gross takeoff weight. If the gross take off weight is underestimated or the cat crew doesn't call for enough energy, you end up with a cold cat shot which means that the aircraft doesn't reach flying speed at the end of the cat shot. When this happens the jet ends up in the water in front of a 98,000 ton aircraft carrier traveling at 30 knots or more.
When it happened to me, I had 17,000 lbs or ordnance and fuel on the hardpoints which I attempt to drop as we were slowly settling towards the ocean. It nearly worked, but the angle of attack was too great as we approached stall speed and our tail section settled into the water. As soon as that happened my back seater initiated the ejection sequence and we went for a swim. The bow lookout on the ship saw us hit the water and notified the bridge and the ship undertook an evasive action to avoided running over us in the water.
