Aircraft carrier worker almost blown off deck by jet
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This episode aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk could have ended very badly. Fortunately, the EA-6B Prowler taking off didn’t blow the guy off the deck.
Yes he's there on purpose. What he's doing is called "slot checking." He's just finished a final check of the jet on the catapult. He's supposed to take a position in the aft (rear) quarter fuselage of the jet to check for proper movement of the flight control surfaces. The "thumbs up" it's to signal that the jet is on tension (engines at almost full power) and ready to launch.
He got blown down deck because the EA-6B Prowler's engines are mounted up high and the exhaust is slightly angled down resulting in a downward washout of air upon launch. Because physics.
This doesn't happen often. Mainly because the aircraft is being phased out, but mostly because slot checking 101 is to grab on to the pad eye (portion of flight deck cut out to accommodate the tying down of chains to aircraft).
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