As their plane approaches the KA-6B to refuel, they are flying aircraft 33 (reverse image), then, they are flying 114, then, they are again flying 33. As they land they are flying 112 (reverse image). Finally, the controller announces that 104 has landed.
Harm and Pistol are flying without their masks. Pilots do not take their masks off during flight. Also, they usually always have their visor down. When the refueling drogue broke their canopy, Harm was hit in the head and was not able to see. Had he had his mask on and visor down there would have been no problem. Also, they would not have had to shout to be heard.
LCdr Rabb's Father was supposedly lost flying off the USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14) on Christmas eve 1969. USS Ticonderoga made 4 WestPac/Vietnam deployments earning 3 Navy Unit Commendations and a Meritorious Unit Commendation. Tico departed Subic Bay, Philippine Islands, 4 Sep 1969 arriving home on the 18th. So, she wasn't in the area for Christmas.
They are in San Diego, La Jolla, and flying out of Miramar. The funeral was most likely at Point Loma. So why after the basket strike, did Pistol redirect to MCAS El Toro; that is all the way over near Palm Springs. The other side of California. He had two military airfield to land at in San Diego; Miramar and North Island, Coronado. Doesn't make sense, script was written by someone unfamiliar with the area.
It is stated that the aircraft that crashed was flying off the USS America (CV-66). America was decommissioned on 9 Aug 1996, approximately 1 year before this episode was made.
The officer investigating the damage states that McKee could do nothing other that firing both ejection seats which would have killed both of them. There was a four tenths of a second delay built into the ejection sequence to prevent just that. If the pilot initiates the ejection, the RIO's seat would go first and then the pilot's.
The officer investigating the crash was not saying that the pilot ejecting both herself and the RIO at the same time would have killed them both because of the backwash from the ejection seat, he is well aware of the delay between the rear and forward seats ejecting, and that would have only killed the RIO, not the pilot. What he meant was that after the Tomcat hit the flock of birds her port engine was destroyed and the left wing flaps were damaged. This caused the plane to become very unstable and head into an inverted roll, the pilot had to fight and hold the rudder to the right to keep the plane level long enough for her RIO to eject. Had she taken her hands off the stick to eject both herself and the RIO, the plane would have continued its roll and they both would have ejected while the plane was inverted. The seats eject from an F-14 at a velocity of 800 miles per hour, with the aircraft inverted, and being only 200 feet in altitude, they would have been shot straight down into the ocean at that speed, which would have almost certainly killed them both instantly on impact. Also ejecting at such a velocity subjects a person to at least 12 G's, sometimes as much as 20 G's depending on altitude, which causes virtually everyone to loose consciousness for at least a few seconds, so even if by some miracle the impact didn't kill them the combination of being unconscious and being shot down deep into the water would cause them to drown.
At 13:24 one officer says that, before the crash, the aircraft had flown at an altitude of "200 feet above the ocean floor". The ocean floor is at the bottom of the ocean. The altitude is measured above the ocean surface, not the ocean floor.