USS Nimitz Loses 2 Aircrafts in South China Sea in 30 Minutes

By Staff, Agencies 

Two US Navy aircraft operating from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz were lost to the sea within roughly 30 minutes of each other: an MH-60R Sea Hawk and an F/A-18F Super Hornet.

On Sunday, search-and-rescue forces recovered all five personnel from the two incidents; troops were reported in stable condition. The US Pacific Fleet has characterized the events as separate incidents and opened formal investigations.

The first incident involved an MH-60R Sea Hawk assigned to Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron HSM-73; it went into the sea in the mid-afternoon while conducting routine carrier operations.

Approximately 30 minutes later, an F/A-18F Super Hornet from VFA-22 crashed into the South China Sea; both aviators ejected and were recovered. Official statements and reporting indicate both events occurred while the Nimitz was operating in the South China Sea during what has been described as routine deployment activity.

A single deck-oriented aviation mishap is an accepted operational risk; two losses from the same carrier within a short span are not. Carrier flight decks are among the most hazardous workplaces in peacetime precisely because routine activity concentrates high-energy operations in a confined, moving environment.

The coincidence of two different airframes, a rotary-wing anti-submarine warfare [ASW] platform and a strike fighter, being lost in quick succession raises immediate questions about whether the events are independent mishaps or symptoms of a common underlying problem, including maintenance, human factors, deck operations, or environmental conditions.

During extended US operations in the Red Sea, including an all-out aerial and naval aggression against the Yemeni Armed Forces, the Navy recorded several high-profile aviation and deck incidents.

Aircraft were lost overboard, and friendly fire shot down a US fighter that the Navy later admitted to.

Those combat-adjacent mishaps, driven in large part by Yemeni missile and unmanned threats and by an unusually high operational tempo, differ in proximate cause from a routine-operations crash, but together they form a cluster that points to systemic pressure on American naval aviation readiness and risk margins.