If you're talking around the Forrestal fire, a Zuni rocket from an F-4 accidentally fired while the plane was on the flight deck. It flew across the flight deck and struck the A-4 that John McCain was sitting in. He was lucky to survive. I saw a program recently where an investigator tried to determine why the rocket fired. IIRC, the investigator believes there was a wiring malfunction in the F-4.

There was another fire on a carrier in the 1960s where a ground start cart (I think it was called a huffer) was parked too close in front of a plane. The huffer's exhaust blew directly on the plane's munitions (many of them dating back to WWII) and cooked off an explosition.

It sounds like someone is combining elements of the two fires. Whether they're doing it innocently or to make political remarks about McCain, I don't know.