I was flying the F-4 in Europe when the result of this incident's investigation went public. Here's what I remember from what was published in Air Force Times or Stars and Stripes:
The incident airplane was from Zweibrucken AB, Germany (not far from my base). They were tasked as Red Air to do a high-speed pass and get photos and skeedaddle. Their real purpose was to see how the battle group would react to a high-speed aircraft headed towards the flag ship. As I recall, it was a pretty big exercise; the Recce bird was just a small part of the "attack."
Dorsey was either an O-2 or O-3. He was still pretty new to the F-14. His RIO was an O-4 and fairly experienced. I believe an E-2C gave the call "Bandit, bandit" (or other "hostile" declaration). Dorsey was quoted as saying "Do they really want me to splash this guy?" The RIO was quoted as saying "Yeah, whatever."
Dorsey tried to fire a
first Sidewinder that either failed to give a tracking tone or failed to launch. Incredibly, he stepped to a
second AIM-9 (Lima, I think in 1987) which came off the rail and did what it was designed to do. Not sure why the more-experienced RIO didn't intercede and try to get him to stop.
The Recce crew stated they felt a bang, got a fire light, and then the jet pitched-down violently---they punched-out. They splashed down and were picked up by a Navy helo within about 15 minutes. Getting on-board the ship, they thanked the Navy repeatedly for saving them. Shortly thereafter, someone (probably the CAG) had to say "Uh, actually, we're sorry, it's our fault you are here!"
Quite a bit was made at the time of the fact that his Dad was an Admiral, and it was suspected he used his influence to prevent him from losing his wings. However, he was not allowed to fly again.
Incidentally, a similar thing happened at Elmendorf around 1992. Two F-15Cs were rotating from the alert base at King Salmon back to Elmendorf. One airplane carried a mix of live AIM-9s and a CATM. They were doing a heat-to-guns cine-track exercise while droning on a hum-drum IFR flight back to Elmendorf. Unfortunately, the incident airplane accidentally stepped to a live missile.
Better outcome: the airplane that got hit still made it back to Elmendorf. The right nozzle and right vertical fin were a mess, though.
(The Air Force banned the carry of mixed live and CATMs shortly after that).
