A Navy warship mistook the American fighter jets for enemy missiles and opened fire. The targeted pilot saw his life flash before his eyes.

• A US Navy warship fired missiles at two US F/A-18 fighter jets over the Red Sea last year.

• The warship mistook the fighter jets for Houthi cruise missiles, the investigation found.

• One of the fighter planes was shot down. The other barely survived the friendly fire incident.

A U.S. Navy pilot whose plane was mistakenly shot down by a U.S. warship over the Red Sea has told investigators he saw his life flash before his eyes before ejecting from the doomed plane.

The command’s investigation into the friendly fire incident in late December 2024, which Business Insider reviewed ahead of its release Thursday, reveals that the warship’s crew mistook two Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets for anti-ship cruise missiles fired by Houthi rebels in Yemen.

In a catastrophic failure, the cruiser USS Gettysburg fired surface-to-air missiles at both F/A-18s, downing one and nearly hitting the second. He also targeted a third friendly aircraft but never pulled the trigger.

One shot and a near miss

Gettysburg and the other warships in the strike group led by the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman deployed in September 2024 and entered the Red Sea three months later to take over the Navy’s combat operations against the Iranian-backed Houthis, who had been attacking key shipping lanes for nearly a year at that time.

Early on December 22, just seven days after entering the Red Sea, Gettysburg accidentally shot down a Super Hornet from Truman’s air wing in what the US military described as “an apparent case of friendly fire”. Both airmen, the pilot and weapons officer, ejected safely from the roughly $60 million fighter jet, part of Strike Fighter Squadron 11 (VFA-11), the “Red Rippers.”

The command investigation reveals that the friendly fire incident almost led to a much bigger disaster. While initial reports focused on the aircraft that was hit, the investigation reveals that a second avoided a catastrophic end and a third was on the move.

As the first surface-to-air missile raced upward from the Gettyburg’s missile tubes, the pilot and weapons officer of the first jet assumed the weapon was targeting a Houthi drone they had not found, the inquiry said.

They watched the rocket climb and then abruptly changed course. As the gun barreled toward them, the pilot suddenly saw his life flash before his eyes, he told investigators. Seeing no other option, the two-man team ejected just before the missile hit the plane.

In that chaotic moment, the Gettysburg fired another missile at a second American fighter jet. Airmen on board issued several calls for May Day, but opted to ride it out instead of bailing. The missile tracked, correcting course in pursuit of the plane.

He narrowly missed, the jet shuddering as it passed just a few meters away before burning up and exploding in the water.

A Navy helicopter commander who witnessed the incident told investigators that his crew “saw the missile overhead and saw it flash.” They said there was no warning before the shot was fired.

The decision to shoot was ‘wrong’

As to the cause of this disaster, the command inquiry pointed to a number of failures, from deficiencies in the planning process to deficiencies in Gettysburg’s combat systems, and noted that crew fatigue may have played a role.

Early in the deployment, the investigation said, the Navy identified “significant degradation” of Gettysburg’s basic interoperability system. The issues related to network management, surveillance reporting and tracking, identification, mutual tracking, mission engagement, and weapons coordination.

During the first three months of deployment, Gettysburg and Truman were often separated. The cruiser repelled Houthi missiles and drones shortly before the friendly fire incident, and there appeared to be some confusion over whether the threat was over.

That said, the inquiry assessed that “the decisions to fire were wrong when measured against the totality of available information” for the Gettysburg commander, who was constrained by a series of previous actions and decisions both within and outside of his control.

The captain had low situational awareness and his combat intelligence team was unable to help him recover, the inquest said.

This shooting down incident was not the only friendly fire incident of the Battle of the Red Sea, although it was the most serious. Early in the Red Sea conflict in February 2024, a German warship accidentally targeted an American MQ-9 Reaper drone, but the missiles never reached it because the warship’s radar system suffered a technical malfunction.

The December 2024 friendly fire incident was one of four major casualties experienced by the Truman strike group during its months-long deployment to the Middle East.

The carrier collided with a cargo ship in February and lost two more F/A-18s to accidents – one fell off the side of the warship along with a towing tractor in April, and another malfunctioned during landing and slid off the flight deck in May.

In a statement on Thursday, Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jim Kilby said the “Navy is committed to being a learning organization,” adding that “these investigations reinforce the need to continue to invest in our people to ensure we deliver combat-ready forces to operational commanders.”

Read the original article on Business Insider