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Posted on 04/28/2025 12:29:39 PM PDT by rdl6989
MANAMA, Bahrain – USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) lost an F/A-18E Super Hornet assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 136 and a tow tractor as the aircraft carrier operated in the Red Sea, April 28. All personnel are accounted for, with one Sailor sustaining a minor injury.
The F/A-18E was actively under tow in the hangar bay when the move crew lost control of the aircraft. The aircraft and tow tractor were lost overboard.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.usni.org ...
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In the Red Sea? They’ll recover that one from the bottom.
Oops. That will be one interesting investigation report.
Shocking.
Very.
I hope so.
Funny, I was just thinking of the paperwork involved.
“The F/A-18E was actively under tow in the hangar bay when the move crew lost control of the aircraft. The aircraft and tow tractor were lost overboard”
I worked for the DoD in support of the Navy Warfighter at a depot level rework facility for over 30 years and I read reports and heard stories of lost and damaged aircraft (many being F18s) in a myriad of ways, but this is a new one on me.
Women tow drivers
Base Flyaway Cost (Recent Estimates): The flyaway cost of an F/A-18E Super Hornet—covering the airframe, engines, and basic avionics, but excluding weapons, spares, or support equipment—is approximately $70–80 million USD in 2025 dollars.
My sister used to be the Assistant Information Officer at NAS Jax. She once told me they lose more aircraft than you know over the side every year but they try to keep it quiet.
Couldn’t find any record of warnings or storms so far, so ship wasn’t likely rocking and rolling...so this will definitely be interesting
Transsexual crossdressers were holding the reins I would imagine.
The Red Sea has an average depth of about 490 meters (1,600 feet). Its maximum depth reaches approximately 3,040 meters (9,970 feet) in the central Suakin Trough. Depths vary across its 2,250-kilometer length, with shallower areas near the coasts and reefs, especially in the Gulf of Suez and Gulf of Aqaba, where depths can be less than 100 meters.
I used to be a Plane Captain, and when they were towing anywhere on the ship you had to have a human “riding brakes” in the cockpit, and that was the plane captain.
We all had a pump handle (about a two feet long hollow iron pipe) and before you jumped into the cockpit, you had to go into the wheel well and pump up the pressure in the hydraulic system with a manual pump attachment to a certain pressure.
Usually enough to give you a few pumps of the brakes.
So, if the plane were to somehow break free of the tractor, or the tractor loses traction, you could apply the plane’s braking system.
All along the flight deck, and on the outside edge of each elevator is a lip of iron maybe five inches high and five inches in width, meant to provide a stop to a slow moving, unpowered plane (or a speed bump to a powered aircraft)
The most dangerous thing was, after a long deployment, the non-skid could wear down, and worse, in certain places, there could be a buildup of hardened grease, rubber, or both.
And when the plane or tractor hit that, it would...and could skid. Granted, if you were sitting in a plane being backed onto an elevator and the ship took a heavy enough roll, that metal rail wasn’t going to stop you even if you did step on the brakes in the cockpit.
Or worse-if a large wave came over the elevator when it was lowered and the ship took a roll at the same time-you could be lost.
It happened back in the Seventies or early Eighties out in the Pacific, but I cannot recall which carrier. The plane rolled off the elevator as they were backing the plane onto it and the ship took a roll. As I recall, they lost the plane and the Plane Captain riding the brakes.
Don’t know what happened here in this case, but it is something to keep in mind. Things may have changed since I was in, but I don’t think that is the case.
Back in the 70s when the Phoenix missile was absolute state of the art stuff, a Tomcat rolled of a flight deck into the North Sea. All the stops were pulled out to recover the aircraft and missiles to keep the Soviets from getting their hands on them.
Part of the Great Rift Valley.
Purging the DEI not completed yet?.
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