US Nearly Shoots Down Second Navy Fighter Jet in Red Sea Friendly Fire Incident
A second US Navy fighter jet narrowly avoided being struck by friendly fire over the Red Sea on Saturday, just hours after a similar incident in which an American fighter jet was accidentally shot down. The second jet, an F/A-18 Super Hornet, was flying above the USS Gettysburg, a guided-missile cruiser, during anti-Houthi missions in the region when the Navy launched a pair of surface-to-air missiles from the ship.
The second jet took evasive maneuvers to avoid the missile aiming at it, narrowly escaping the friendly fire by about 100 feet before landing on the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman. The pilots of the first jet, which was accidentally struck by one of the weapons, safely ejected from the aircraft before it crashed.
The incident is being investigated by the Navy, which is looking into whether one of the SM-2 missiles was accidentally targeting the second jet and if the Gettysburg had turned off its guidance system at the time. The jets had been supporting US air strikes over Yemen, where Houthi terrorists have launched three separate ballistic missile attacks on Israel in the past week.
The Navy confirmed on Tuesday that it is investigating the friendly fire near-disasters, which occurred while US Navy carrier groups were patrolling the Red Sea as Yemeni Houthi rebels escalate attacks.