Middle East
Another fighter jet from USS Truman carrier lost at sea, reports say
Stars and Stripes
May 7, 2025
An F/A-18E Super Hornet launches from the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea on April 28, 2025. (Madelyn Cuevas/U.S. Navy)
A second F/A-18 Super Hornet from the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman has been lost in the Red Sea in just over a week, unnamed U.S. defense officials told CNN and NBC News on Tuesday.
The incident occurred as the fighter jet was attempting to land on the carrier, and preliminary indications suggest an arrestment failure may have led to the crash, according to five people familiar with the matter who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity.
The pilot and weapons systems officer ejected from the two-seat aircraft and were recovered by a rescue helicopter, suffering only minor injuries, one of the people said. The aircraft plunged into the sea and has not been recovered.
This follows a similar incident involving another Super Hornet from the Truman just one week earlier. Initial reports said that jet fell overboard after the carrier made a hard turn to evade fire from Iranian-backed Houthi militants.
A Defense Department official last week said that a hard turn by an aircraft carrier isn’t enough on its own to cause a $67 million Navy fighter jet to slide off a ship, and investigators are still determining how the plane fell into the Red Sea.