Sailors’ Stories: Rear Admiral Bob Besal

This article originally from CNN.

Former naval aviator Bob Besal was just 24 when his life literally took a dive. He was piloting a Vought A-7C on a training mission 20 miles east of St. Augustine, Florida, more than 37 years ago when his aircraft collided with another plane at 15,000 feet, sending his jet spiraling into the Atlantic. Besal ejected safely; his plane sank to the bottom of the ocean.

This month, Besal’s past caught up with the present as divers found his wreckage — 80 feet down — and the story can now be written about the people who found it and Besal’s reaction.

They were rolling their aircraft and doing simulated bombing runs at 300–350 knots. By his own admission, Besal got too close to the plane piloted by his commanding officer, Cmdr. Peter Schoeffel, a former Vietnam POW.

“The event is burned in my brain,” said Besal, a retired rear admiral who served 30 years in the Navy, speaking from Charleston, South Carolina where he now teaches aviation maintenance at Trident Technical College.

“It was gray and rainy — not a nice day to be sitting in the ocean.”

“Pilot error. It was entirely my fault,” he said. “I got a little disoriented. I heard a huge bang. My airplane almost immediately went out of control.”

Joe Kistel, executive director of TISIRI (Think It Sink It Reef It), found the wreckage while mapping the sea floor. A data plate led his team to identify the aircraft and find Besal.

They took photos and launched their own investigation. By a stroke of luck, Kistel found a small riveted data plate beneath years of growth which identified the aircraft and led them to Besal.

“What I am probably most excited about,” Kistel said, “is to show Bob how this wreckage is a productive reef ecosystem today — a very positive outcome from an unfortunate accident years ago.”