A USMC TAV-8B Harrier from VMAT-203 suffered a landing gear malfunction
when trying to return to MCAS Cherry Point. The Marine aviator realizing his
gear failed to extend naturally referred to SOP that dictated activating the
backup safety nitrogen bottle to blow the gear down.

Unfortunately for the pilot and plane, when communicating the issue over the
radio, a higher-ranking officer ordered him not to follow standard operating
procedures and instead had a stack of strapped mattresses placed in the
centre of the runway.

Much to the surprise of the Officer who devised the imaginative contingency
plan…when the 23,000lb fighter jet blowing down over 20,000 pounds of
vectored thrust from its Pegasus engines settled down on its bed, the landing
mattresses immediately responded with an un-contained self-executed rapid
kinetic disassembly exploding in a shower of metal springs, fabric and coils
that were quickly ingested through the spinning blades of the jet engine.
Although the aircraft was extensively damaged, the pilot was able to climb
out of bed without injury.

When ground crews jacked up the Harrier Jump Jet, they we able to blow the
gear down with no problems. This is when the story takes an even stranger turn.
Once the jet was placed in the hangar, relatively undamaged structurally speaking,
an EZ-go golf cart came flying into the hangar and smashed directly into the jet,
causing some D-level repair damage. It turns out that the cart operator was huffing
keyboard cleaner shortly before making his parts run in the EZ-go. He got dizzy,
lost consciousness and the cart, now driverless, turned directly into the hangar at
full speed through a gap in the hangar doors and smashed into the parked Jump Jet.