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Incredible that they manage to survive this accident. That they were KIA shortly afterwards is the kind of stuff that makes you wonder if your time isn't pretty much writen at your birth and doesn't matter what you do.
So secret that even the pilot didn't know about it. Not unlike Boeing MACS!
My (now) ex was deadheading home on a Northwest Airlink Metro IV at "the sewer" (EWR) when a young female ramp agent had trouble trying to pull the ground power cable after #2 was started and online. The power port on the Metro is under the right nacelle, dangerously far forward, and angled so that it has to be pulled in a forward direction to disengage the cable. She found it jammed, and crouching under the wing couldn't wiggle it free, but the crew, running late, was frantically signaling to get it done and another plane was idling on the ramp waiting for the spot. She turned around, braced her feet against the wheel chock, and yanked it free, launching her right shoulder into the spinning prop, sending her arm to spew blood across the FO's side window, bounce off the windshield, and come to rest atop the baggage on a passing cart. She spent the last three minutes of her life thanking her fellow ground crew members for pulling her out from under the plane and asking them to take care of her three year old daughter. 21 year old single mom working three jobs where nobody knew of the other jobs or her desperate life.
There were no more problems than the norm for carrier ops in operating Hellcats from escort carriers. The RN operated them from HMS Emperor from late 1943 and she was later joined by other escort carriers with Hellcats in the Indian Ocean in 1945.
