This is the combined effect of two physics glitches, one of which is beneficial.
The first is that you can back up on the carrier deck. By making your aircraft's mathematics work out that it should be traveling slower than the aircraft carrier, you can slide backwards across the deck. This is accomplished by raising the throttle very slightly.
The second is that we do not have explicit "wires" running across the deck and the way that they're modeled. It seems as though there is a near-infinite number of wires strewn across the back of the deck. For each one you touch, there is a slight backward force applied to your hook, thus slowing you to a stop quickly if you're traveling forwards. If you're going backwards, however, the hook touches one wire after another until you gain so much speed you can't stop, thereby flying backwards off the deck.
Learn to land with your hook up, calibrate or even under-calibrate your throttle (don't move it quite the full range, tricking the game into thinking its throw is short), or pull your hook up as soon as you stop.
