US fighter jet rolls off aircraft carrier, sinks into ocean, Navy says

Let's go see if these folks have a report,

An F/-18E Super Hornet assigned to the carrier air wing embarked aboard aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) was lost at sea during a towing incident in the hangar bay Monday, according to a Navy announcement.

The single-seat Super Hornet assigned to the “Knighthawks” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 136, “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,” reads the statement.
“Sailors towing the aircraft took immediate action to move clear of the aircraft before it fell overboard. An investigation is underway.”

No personnel were lost and one sailor sustained minor injuries, according to the service.

Truman was conducting an “evasive maneuver” during the incident, a U.S. defense official confirmed to USNI News on Monday. A second defense official told USNI News the Super Hornet was being loaded onto the aircraft elevator on Truman when the strike fighter slid over the edge.
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TomcatViP said:
There was that also earlier:

Operational fatigue?
(Sourced from the ABC link at the top of this page)
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Unlikely.

Having a sudden 15deg List in the direction of the open elevator doors while the aircraft is moving that way anyways, I don't think there's a force on earth that could have prevented such an accident.
 
Surely it wouldn't be too onerous to have emergency inflatable floatation devices in Naval aircraft for exactly this sort of occurrence? At least the aircraft could be salvaged for parts then
 
scautomoton said:
Surely it wouldn't be too onerous to have emergency inflatable floatation devices in Naval aircraft for exactly this sort of occurrence? At least the aircraft could be salvaged for parts then
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You have to weigh the cost of making an aircraft potentially salveable from a very rare situation, vs the costs of maintenance and the potential for inadvertent, and dangerous, inflation at other times.
 
scautomoton said:
Surely it wouldn't be too onerous to have emergency inflatable floatation devices in Naval aircraft for exactly this sort of occurrence? At least the aircraft could be salvaged for parts then
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They can be salvaged from considerable depths with the USN's Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System or a similar system from elsewhere. The current record is an SH-60 from 5,814 metres, but a capability exists for at least 27 tonnes from 6,100 metres.
 
DWG said:
You have to weigh the cost of making an aircraft potentially salveable from a very rare situation, vs the costs of maintenance and the potential for inadvertent, and dangerous, inflation at other times.
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Appreciated, yet we're talking about a 15 tonne jet which would need a 3-4m diameter floatation device (when inflated), which instinctively feels like a small package when uninflated. Plus an inflation charge can't be any more dangerous or maintenance intensive than the rocket pack on an ejector seat?

Plus there's the cost of the salvage operation itself, the risk of confidential tech being recovered by hostile states (think the F35 saga a couple of years ago).

I guess if its one aircraft lost overboard every couple of years then perhaps its completely unnecessary. How many actually tend to be lost in landing errors or this kind of mishap annually?
 
scautomoton said:
Appreciated, yet we're talking about a 15 tonne jet which would need a 3-4m diameter floatation device (when inflated), which instinctively feels like a small package when uninflated.
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15 tonnes is going to need 15m3 of water displacement,. Helicopter flotation packs, often attached to the skids, usually appear roughly the size of a ASM such as Sea Skua. But you can't attach them externally to a fast jet, so where inside a Super Hornet are you going to find the space to include two ASM equivalents?
 
DWG said:
15 tonnes is going to need 15m3 of water displacement,. Helicopter flotation packs, often attached to the skids, usually appear roughly the size of a ASM such as Sea Skua. But you can't attach them externally to a fast jet, so where inside a Super Hornet are you going to find the space to include two ASM equivalents?
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Fair, having just googled it they are a tad larger than I expected.
 
DWG said:
You have to weigh the cost of making an aircraft potentially salveable from a very rare situation, vs the costs of maintenance and the potential for inadvertent, and dangerous, inflation at other times.
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This. My money's on someone already having done the math on this and finding that it just isn't worth it cost/benefit wise.
 
I think all attempts to perfectly eliminate the possibility of this relatively rare set of circumstances will quickly start to converge on "why don't they just build the whole plane out of the black box?" territory.
 
jeffb said:
This. My money's on someone already having done the math on this and finding that it just isn't worth it cost/benefit wise.
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One of the WW2 or interwar USN planes had ditching floats built into the wings, they suffered a high enough rate of accidental activation that they were removed from succeeding designs.
 
Halcyon66 said:
Second US Navy jet is lost at sea from Truman aircraft carrier



You have to be kidding.

Regards,
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It's actually the third lost from the Truman air wing. The Friendly Fire accident was from the Truman as well.

As to this one, RUMINT from the NAMP Compliance FB group says there was another missile fired that required abrupt maneuvers from the carrier.
 
FighterJock said:
Three Hornets lost from the Truman carrier? Just what is going on with carriers these days?
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I don't think the carrier is the issue, but the crew most likely being extremely fatigued and morale has to be at an all time low. Add to that the fact the Navy parked that thing literally in the Red Sea rather than making use of the stand off capability of the vessel and you get what we're seeing now.

They could deploy it off the Gulf of Aden or the Arabian Sea, if it's just about putting pressure on the Houthis in Yemen. But instead they are tasked with protecting a country that more often than not hails it's AD network and air force as the best in the region (the latter being true for all we know). Thus using a CSG as a glorified SAM and interceptor system in a very vulnerable and strategically speaking claustrophobic area isn't necessarily the best idea, but who am I to say this?

All in all, I think that this show of force turned into quite an embarrassment for the USN on the global stage. One has to hope it's unique to this ship and this deployment and not indicative for the overall state of the Navy.
 
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And one I would think that the US Navy would rather forget about in the long term I would think EmoBrib.
 
FighterJock said:
And one I would think that the US Navy would rather forget about in the long term I would think EmoBrib.
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On the other hand it should be looked at for lessons learned, like how the escorts missed the attacks that cost the second hornet.
 
The sooner the leasons are learned the better sparky42. What could they do to improve the escorts to shoot down the missiles before they get within range of the carriers? Add rapid firing laser turrets, as in what they were going to do in the good old days of Ronald Reagan's Star Wars anti missile program?
 
FighterJock said:
The sooner the leasons are learned the better sparky42. What could they do to improve the escorts to shoot down the missiles before they get within range of the carriers? Add rapid firing laser turrets, as in what they were going to do in the good old days of Ronald Reagan's Star Wars anti missile program?
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Aren't lasers to be fitted on Arleigh-Burke Flight IIIs?
 
The sooner the Arleigh-burke class Flight 3s get lasers EmoBirb the better.
 

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