16-6694 —

Fortunately, no extreme damage occurred as a result of this incident and no one was injured to any great degree. (There may have been some bruises from the sudden push against the seatbelts but nothing beyond that.)

The actual "reason" for the Aborted Takeoff was radioed as "Unsafe Takeoff Indication." What that meant was / is unknown to me. However, given the hard degree of brake application with the Clipper still having 7000 feet of runway remaining in which to stop, I'd say whatever the "Unsafe Indication" was, it was serious enough to mean the pilots felt they had to shut down the roll very quickly.
I've seen Rejections in the past, and this one certainly ranks up there as one of the most harshly conducted. In fact, I have sequence pics similar to the sequence of this Clipper of a Sun Country military charter that was into its takeoff roll right next to me down runway 34R (the runway now numbered 35R) (same runway as this Clipper but the other end) when the pilots rejected, and all they did was throttle back, brake gently, and let it roll to a stop. In this instance, not only were the brakes applied so heavily that they overheated, but a later picture in this sequence shows the wing spoilers, ailerons, and flaps were deployed AND the engine reversers were also deployed and the fully fueled and pax-loaded Clipper was brought to a full stop in just 1000 feet. So whatever the UNSAFE indication was in THIS incident, it must have been UNSAFE enough that the Clipper's Departure roll needed to be shut down quickly.

No matter what the reason, passengers on this Clipper experienced a few moments of faster heartbeats when they went from accelerating to sudden stopping. But the Navy pilots were fully attentive and professionally reactive. No one hurt, no damage -- all in a day's work.

Kudos to them.

(All photos in this sequence released to US Naval agency.)

Great shot Gary!

Well done, Gary!