# Second U.S. Navy F/A-18 Lost in the Red Sea After Carrier Landing Failure
Event date: 2025-05-06
A second F/A-18 Super Hornet from the USS Harry S. Truman was lost in the Red Sea after an attempted landing went wrong, according to people familiar with the matter cited by CNN. The incident marks another setback for the carrier group just over a week after a separate jet from the same ship was also lost.
The report said the aircraft was lost during a landing attempt on the Truman and that the cause was linked to an equipment failure. Both crew members aboard ejected and were recovered, limiting the personnel toll even as the Navy faced the loss of another high-value fighter jet.
CNN’s account did not identify the specific equipment involved, and the report was framed around information from four people familiar with the matter. That means the account is still limited by the same constraints that often surround early reports on military incidents at sea: the basic sequence is known, but the technical details may take time to confirm publicly.
The Truman has been operating in one of the world’s most sensitive maritime corridors, where U.S. naval forces have been exposed to repeated operational pressure. In this case, the immediate result was the loss of an aircraft rather than a loss of life. The recovery of both aircrew is the clearest confirmed human detail in the report.
The incident also follows closely on the heels of another F/A-18 loss from the same carrier. CNN said this was the second jet lost from the Truman in just over a week, underscoring the scale of the equipment disruption. F/A-18 Super Hornets are the Navy’s main carrier-based strike fighters, and each loss represents both a safety event and a material setback.
The report as published did not say whether the latest aircraft was destroyed on impact, sank immediately, or had any further recovery effort under way. It also did not give a dollar figure for the loss, but a modern carrier fighter jet is an expensive asset and one that is difficult to replace quickly in an active deployment.
For the crew, the ejection and recovery prevented the incident from becoming a fatal accident. For the Navy, the larger issue is the operational strain of losing a second jet from the same carrier in a short window. That kind of sequence invites scrutiny of flight-deck procedures, maintenance systems, and the wider tempo of carrier operations, even before investigators publish a formal account.
At this stage, the most reliable public conclusion is narrow but important: another Truman-based F/A-18 was lost in the Red Sea during an attempted landing, both aviators got out safely, and the incident came after an earlier jet loss from the same carrier in the preceding days.
Further official detail will be needed to determine whether the cause was isolated to this aircraft, linked to the carrier’s landing systems, or part of a broader operational problem. Until then, the event stands as a second costly mishap for the Truman group in a short span, with the Navy yet again balancing safety, readiness, and the risks of carrier operations in a contested region.
