On Sunday morning, a U.S. Navy cruiser accidentally shot down a U.S. Navy fighter jet over the Red Sea, forcing the two pilots to eject. The friendly-fire incident occurred after a UAV and missile barrage launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels, according to U.S. Central Command.
Early Sunday morning, an F/A-18 Super Hornet launched off the deck of the carrier USS Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea. Shortly after the fighter took off, the crew of the USS Gettysburg - the carrier strike group's cruiser, typically the host of the air defense commander - misidentified the F/A-18 as a threat and shot it down. The pilots safely ejected and were retrieved, though one had minor injuries.
The incident occurred during a high-operational-tempo action off the coast of Yemen. On Saturday, before the accident, U.S. Central Command carried out a round of airstrikes against Houthi missile storage and command-and-control facilities in Sana’a, Yemen. During the operation on Saturday, CENTCOM forces also shot down multiple incoming Houthi suicide drones and one antiship cruise missile (ASCM) over the Red Sea. Both U.S. Air Force fighters and U.S. Navy F/A-18s were involved in that operation.
The friendly-fire incident highlighted the exceptionally challenging threat environment in the Red Sea, as well as the pressures on air defense personnel. In the tight confines of the Red Sea, U.S. Navy surface combatants often have a matter of seconds to correctly identify a Houthi missile threat and launch an interceptor in response. The risks of miscalculation are high, and this is not the first time that the allied response team in the Red Sea has made a mistake.
In February 2024, the German Navy frigate Hesse nearly shot down a U.S. drone aircraft over the Red Sea. The crew could not identify the drone and concluded that it posed a threat. Due to an unspecified "technical error," two missiles fired by Hesse at the drone both missed. "The case was resolved when it turned out that it wasn't a hostile drone, which only became clear in hindsight," German defense ministry spokesman Michael Stempfle said at the time.
USS Gettysburg is a Ticonderoga-class cruiser commissioned in 1991. She was fitted with a Cold War-era AN/SPY-1 multifunction air defense radar, which was upgraded during a nine-year-long inactivation and modernization period (2015-24). She is the only cruiser to complete repairs and deploy following the Navy's controversial service life extension program for the Ticonderoga-class.
