This ‘official” who gave out this information needs to be arrested and put in the brig. It has not been released for a reason. At the very least, our enemies know we are short two aircraft in a war zone.
This kind of crap makes my blood boil. They need to start finding these people and throwing their ass in jail!!!!!
It’s on the front page of the U.S. 5th Fleet official website...
Two aircraft is a small percentage of the air assests in the middle east. It would be public knowledge in a few hours at the very least.
Even the Iranians have enough intelligence info to figure out we lost aircraft due to the increased activity and radio traffic.
Before the pilots even hit the water the entire carrier battle group set "River City One" status and all outgoing communication from the ship was secured. All the phone lines, email, internet, etc. are immediately shut down. The procedure takes about a minute.
You can guarantee this release was authorized.