An F/A-18E Super Hornet jet, along with a tractor tow, fell off the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) during operations in the Red Sea, according to a US Navy statement on 28 April 2025.
The Navy flagship allegedly made a hard turn to evade Houthi strikes an unnamed US official told CNN.
The Navy confirmed that the aircraft was actively under tow in the hangar bay when the move crew lost control of the aircraft which resulted in the the two vehicles falling overboard. An investigation is already underway.
The carrier strike group (CSG) and the remaining embarked air wing remain fully mission capable. The CSG consists of the flagship carrier, nine squadrons of Carrier Air Wing 1, three guided-missile destroyers of Destroyer Squadron 28, and the Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS Gettysburg (CG 64).
Super Hornet is a maritime strike aircraft that first entered service in 1999 as a smaller and less complex design than its predecessor, the F/A-18C/D. The platform is valued at more than $60m per aircraft, and GlobalData indicate that the US Navy operate 675 units.
Meanwhile, CVN 75 is one of the latest Nimitz-class aircraft carriers, which entered service in July 1998. The platform has a displacement of 102,000 tonnes; and it can carry 6,000 personnel.
Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea
The carrier has been operating without interruption since it entered the Central Command area of responsibility on 14 December 2024 to protect merchant shipping in the bottlenecked waterway under the auspices of the multinational Operation Prosperity Guardian.
The group’s “presence exemplifies the strength, power projection, and war fighting prowess of the US Navy,” commented General Michael Erik Kurilla, CENTCOM commander, when he visited the fleet on 12 January.
Its “presence in the region reinforces our commitment, alongside our partners and allies, to ensuring maritime security and deterring threats to regional stability,” he added.
According to firgures from the White House, the Houthi rebels, based in Yemen, have fired at US Navy warships dozens of times, launched numerous attacks on civilian infrastructure in partner nations, and attacked commercial vessels transiting Bab al-Mandeb more than 100 times.
For this reason, the US President Donald Trump re-designated the militants as a foreign terrorist organisation two days after he entered office for his second non-consecutive term.
On 13 February, the Navy had confirmed an earlier incident in which CVN 75 had been involved in a “collision” with a merchant vessel, the Besiktas-M, while operating in the vicinity of Port Said, Egypt, a day before.
The collision did not endanger the carrier as there were no reports of flooding or injuries. Likewise, the propulsion plants were unaffected and in a safe and stable condition. However, the navy did not comment on the status of the merchant vessel.
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