The Truman aircraft carrier seems to have had a run of bad luck over the past six months. In December a Truman-based F-18 was shot down by the USS Gettysburg operating in the Red Sea. The crew were recovered uninjured. Two months later, this time in the Med, the Truman collided with a freighter resulting in the dismissal of her commander. Last week an F-18 plus its tug slipped overboard while being moved during a hard turn of the boat. The tug operator was injured. And finally yesterday a super-hornet crew ejected with injuries after the arresting cable failed during an attempted trap. I know she’s doing some good work keeping Houthi shipping attacks at bay. But a lot of own-goaling seems to be taking place here. Is this just normal Navy in a complex environment? Or is this a particularly bad run?
I hardly believe that it’s a single factor…
I’d guess high operational tempo without much in the way of rest in a dangerous patch of water?
But yes, it’s a notable run of … “bad luck” shall we say!
Yeah probably coincidence. But still weird.
High operational tempo in a contested environment.
When you’re operating at a high OPTEMPO, especially when you’re at general quarters for days on end, regular maintenance goes out the window, unless things are mission critical and are on the verge of breaking.
Additionally exhaustion set in fast at the best of times on warships, much faster with this kind of thing going on. That leads to things happening, or can be considered contributing factors.
Keeps Boeing in business I guess.
True. I think a Hornet is $50M per piece or so.
My question is where are the other carriers and why aren’t they helping out? I know a couple are always under maintenance or refueling but we’ve got what, 11 of them?
I dunno? I’m not normally superstitious, but sometimes inanimate objects can be ‘bad luck’ that transcends what is statistically likely… and sometimes downright freaky.
There was a Leopard at 1st Armd when I was there that was constantly breaking down, despite the best efforts of the RAEME mechanics and was involved in a spate of accidents that injured the driver. Rumour was that this particular tank was the one that had rolled into a creek a few years previously, trapping the driver who drowned!
Vinson is also in the region.
The Red Sea and Persian Gulf get rather crowded rather quickly, especially when you’re looking at continuous flight ops and strike ops.
Nimitz is in the South Pacific, because the world doesn’t revolve around the Middle East. And yeah, the rest are in for repairs, training, workups, stand downs, or refuel. Because operating in the ocean is rough on any ship. Even more so on the crew. Especially with active combat operations for so long.
We had a truck that was crashed into a car on the m25 and sadly killed an old lady. None of the drivers would take it out. I drove it a few times and it was completely fine, but it always stayed with me how people felt about it. The mind is a curious thing
I haven’t had a chance to watch this one, but per Ward’s summary:
An F/A-18E from VFA-136 being towed on the hangar bay fell over the side of the USS Harry S Truman as the ship was maneuvering to avoid getting hit by a Houthi weapon. One sailor was injured while jumping from the jet before it went into the water, but there was no loss of life.
I don’t consider that an own goal per say. Loosing a second Hornet so soon to an arresting cable failure is not optimal either. Assuming all relevant protocols were followed for maintenance, they apparently got the cable that didn’t land in the MTBF range.
That’s surprising. I thought that was CVW-5’s area of responsibility. Time for me to check out gonavy.jp again and find out where GW is these days.
Has the Navy retreived either of the Hornets that went over the side?
Wheels
Is there a reason to? I get ordinance maybe. But is anything salvageable?
It may not be possible to conduct a retrieval operation in such heavily contested waters? And, does the US Navy even have that capability organically or would it need to contract private firms to do the work (who’d then need to deal with insurance et cetera)…
Not with everything going on there right now.
I suspect there might be classified equipment that we would not want a less than friendly group or nation to retrieve?
Wheels