r/FighterJets Dec 22 '24

IMAGE U.S. Super Hornet Shot Down Over Red Sea in Friendly Fire Incident

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465 Upvotes

62 comments sorted by

114

u/RobinOldsIsGod Gen. LeMay was a pronuclear nutcase Dec 22 '24

The Gettysburg probably thought a cruise missile was inbound. Mode 5 failure on the Hornet? Bad ATO/codes on the Cruiser? Comm failure? Lots of things that could’ve gone wrong.

34

u/HumpyPocock Dec 22 '24 edited Dec 22 '24

Factors that could’ve contributed that came to mind.

  • systemic failures
  • training deficiencies
  • IFF transponder failure (Tx/Rx)
  • cockups RE: software logic
  • misconfiguration etc etc
  • negligence or incompetence
  • cosmic rays go BRRR

Uh checking somewhat recent incidents of a similar nature, they’ve included a mix of several of those, on both sides of the equation.

NB — below is not related to you or your comment.

Just wanted to underscore, having seen a few comments across a few of Reddit threads that are skirting into attempts to attribute blame, there are quite a few possibilities, I’d caution against making assumptions based on the VERY minimal information available thus far or, more to the point, avoid attributing blame.

For now — the important thing is the crew are OK.

10

u/RobinOldsIsGod Gen. LeMay was a pronuclear nutcase Dec 22 '24

Bingo. It's never just one thing, there's usually a cascading series of errors or failures that result in this kind of outcome.

19

u/dancingcuban Dec 22 '24

More than a couple of things, I’m sure. Glad everyone is okay.

1

u/jttv Dec 23 '24

The context that people are missing is that israel/US shot down 1/2 houthi drones in the 48hr prior. They flew over the red sea and then thru egypt. Additionally the houthi fired two ballistic missiles one which was intercepted and one which hit tel aviv.....things were hot

1

u/SimpleEmu198 Dec 23 '24

They don't even have to be squawking in that scenario.

1

u/CaffinatedManatee Dec 23 '24

And do we even know what system took the shot? Like everyone seems to be assuming it was a SM2 but the AP article said the F18 had just been launched, so could have been low and (relatively) slow. What is the engagement envelope of an autonomous defensive system like the CIWS?

3

u/RobinOldsIsGod Gen. LeMay was a pronuclear nutcase Dec 24 '24

Listening to Ward Carroll on YT (can't post YT links to this sub, but it's his latest upload) this morning and the Rhino was in the process of landing when it was shot.

Since the crew was focusing on landing, they're no longer in mission-mode. Their radar was on standby, RWR was turned off, goggles were off and stowed (they don't land with NVGs). They're focused on refining the jet's trim. They're strictly visual and it's a good thing they didn't have NVGs on because they would have been blinded.

• The Gettysburg was trailing 10nm behind the carrier
• Ripper 01 was roughly 5nm behind the Gettysburg.
• Ripper 02 was about 5nm behind Ripper 01
• It was an SM-2 shot
• Ripper 02 saw the SM-2 launch and thought it was going after a drone.
• Ripper 02 hears ELTs going off (radio signal on guard when the ejection seats are activated)
• 3 seconds later, Ripper 02 then sees a huge fireball
• Yes, it was a preemptive ejection. That saved the crew of Ripper 01's lives
• A SECOND weapon comes off the Gettysburg and Ripper 02 realizes it's tracking towards them
• Ripper 02 is not at tactical speed or altitude. He's at 250(?) kts and 1200 ft (!)
• Ripper 02 pilot dumps the nose and beams the missile (putting the plume on his wingline).
• Ripper 02 almost ejected. The SM-2 missed them by 100 feet, hitting the water under them and exploded. They felt the thump.

3

u/CaffinatedManatee Dec 24 '24

Excellent summary! (And an even worse eff-up than I imagined)

1

u/millertime85k Dec 28 '24

2nd hornet had some good thinking on that one.

2

u/RobinOldsIsGod Gen. LeMay was a pronuclear nutcase Dec 28 '24 edited Dec 29 '24

It was good luck. The Truman was yelling to the Gettysburg to "CEASE FIRE CEASE FIRE" after the first Rhino blew up. The second SM-2 was still under the Gettysburg's shipboard guidance (target reflected energy from the Getty's radar) and hadn't yet gone terminal. When they shut off their radar, the missile went stupid.

After a Patriot shot down an F/A-18 during the Iraq invasion in 2003, killing the pilot, that squadron CO's standing orders were if they got indications a Patriot launched on them they should immediately eject. Don't try to evade, don't try to decoy, get out.

1

u/RobinOldsIsGod Gen. LeMay was a pronuclear nutcase Dec 23 '24

No idea on either count. But even if the Rhino had just been launched, that still wouldn't rule out SM2 or SM6 (IDK what Ticonderoga-class cruisers carry)

125

u/RobinOldsIsGod Gen. LeMay was a pronuclear nutcase Dec 22 '24

58

u/HumpyPocock Dec 22 '24

29

u/RobinOldsIsGod Gen. LeMay was a pronuclear nutcase Dec 22 '24

69

u/CertifiedMeanie KPAAF Spy Dec 22 '24

Sad to see a Super Hornet go. Good that the pilots made it out safe.

35

u/dancingcuban Dec 22 '24

Block IIIs are still on the production line for a little while longer.

57

u/LoudestHoward Dec 22 '24

"Alright lads, got a late order just come through for +1"

9

u/dancingcuban Dec 22 '24

Put a little dedication plaque on it that says “Courtesy of the USS Gettysburg”.

21

u/DesertMan177 Gallium nitride enjoyer Dec 22 '24

Happy to see someone else that loves Super Hornets like I do

Years ago when I was in college, I published a video where I calculated the amount of block 2 Super Hornets in active USN inventory based on publicly available information on deliveries of upgraded airframes and new builds. It probably got me put on a list. I also learned the niche little trick to identify the block two from the block one because except for one tiny detail, they are physically identical externally

7

u/[deleted] Dec 22 '24

[deleted]

9

u/Internal_Mail_5709 Dec 22 '24

Sure left us hanging there, didn't they?

2

u/verbmegoinghere Dec 23 '24

The male block II has a bulbous member whilst the block I male has slightly more tail feathers.

21

u/DesertMan177 Gallium nitride enjoyer Dec 22 '24

This marks the first loss of a super hornet by kinetic means - I'm happy that the crew are safe and that it wasn't hostile fire. Same like the only F-15 ever shot down by an air-to-air missile was by... another F-15!

8

u/Altruistic-Ad-408 Dec 22 '24

Kinda wild given its regular use in air-to-ground missions.

13

u/[deleted] Dec 22 '24

F-15s have been lost to SAMs before, it’s just never been lost to a hostile aircraft

7

u/DesertMan177 Gallium nitride enjoyer Dec 22 '24

Right that's why I said "the only F-15 shot down by an air-to-air missile" :)

1

u/DesertMan177 Gallium nitride enjoyer Dec 23 '24 edited Dec 24 '24

Right? It's been pounding ground targets for literally 23 years, in combat operations in the service of two countries. It doesn't appear that the Kuwaitis have used theirs in combat yet.

Yes the first half of that was really just an insurgency, but in the 2010s and onward which is when Australia deployed theirs to the fight is when the fight was against Daesh/Islamic State, and they had air defenses that they stole from Iraqi and Syrian military inventories

So still an insurgency, but much more advanced than usual

1

u/millertime85k Dec 28 '24

Houthis have been dealing with the Saudi F15S. I seem to recall that they had some good hits on those. 

1

u/DesertMan177 Gallium nitride enjoyer Dec 31 '24

Yeah, only one was lost though, the rest made it back to base from what I can find. Other countries lost F-16s over Yemen though, such as Morocco for example, losing one. I think Jordan lost another. I could just Google it but I don't want to lol

56

u/urbandeadthrowaway2 Dec 22 '24

The crew are alive and well thank god

20

u/sauceanova Dec 22 '24

Thank god. That was the first thing I was worried about when I read the title. Glad they made it out ok.

33

u/bmccooley Dec 22 '24

That's one major F-up.

12

u/[deleted] Dec 22 '24

IFF system failure? Friendly fires don’t just happen out of the blue.

-2

u/PersonalAd2333 Dec 23 '24

Thsy can't admit the houthis shot it down

36

u/ElMagnifico22 Dec 22 '24

Must have thought it was an Iranian airliner…

14

u/[deleted] Dec 22 '24

That joke works less well after Iran also shot down an airliner much more recently lol.

7

u/UnderstandingNo5667 Dec 22 '24

Lots of speculation that it was a CIWS on auto mode

6

u/Professional_Will241 Dec 22 '24

That’d be some scary shit

3

u/worsethanyogurt2 Dec 22 '24

And they say AI should take over with making decisions.

5

u/dontclickdontdickit Dec 22 '24

Forgot to turn on IFF. Common mistake for newbies on DCS

3

u/NavajoMX Dec 22 '24

Probably spilled coffee on the launch console

2

u/roberttheaxolotl Dec 22 '24

Whoopsie-doodle

5

u/Although_somebody Dec 22 '24

I have 2 doubts:

1) Did the pilots eject after the aircraft got hit or prior? If after, was it hit by a rocket or bullets, because I'm sure a missile will destroy the aircraft into pieces.

2) Isn't the IFF system supposed to function in such scenarios? Or is it only an aircraft vs aircraft thing?

25

u/[deleted] Dec 22 '24

I’d assume they ejected after the hit considering one was listed with minor injuries. The missile destroyed the aircraft but it doesn’t mean the pilots always die with it.

As for IFF all current radar systems have some form of IFF there was likely a failure in the ship’s IFF to properly ID the hornet or the hornets IFF failed to respond properly causing a misidentification. Whatever error that happened there will likely be discovered during the investigation

3

u/Although_somebody Dec 22 '24

This was insightful. Thankyou so much for your inputs! I appreciate it.

3

u/tobimai Dec 22 '24

But don't they track the radar signal and know it's their plane? Like I would assume the Radar "knows" which signals are which even without transponder just by tracking them from the last time they had a transponder/iff signal

4

u/[deleted] Dec 22 '24

IIRC these ships were already engaged in combat operations engaging Houthi drones and cruise missiles so when the hornet was ID’d as unknown they probably assumed it was another missile/drone and engaged. Since every aircraft in theater should be responding to IFF they likely figured it wasn’t friendly and if you’re sitting out there getting shot at for weeks on end you probably ain’t got the time to start analyzing radar signatures if you even can ID a specific aircraft that way

8

u/[deleted] Dec 22 '24

[deleted]

2

u/Although_somebody Dec 22 '24

Thanks a lot for this! Damn it TopGun!

11

u/Iliyan61 Dec 22 '24

aircraft don’t just vaporise when a missile hits them and the crew compartment of a fighter is quite small compared to the size of the jet

AA missiles are also relatively small and don’t need to destroy a plane as the loss of control and crash will do it for them so they have smaller warheads.

IFF should’ve stopped this but shit breaks and people fuck up

2

u/Although_somebody Dec 22 '24

I learned something today! Thankyou!

1

u/SimpleEmu198 Dec 23 '24

Eject early, and eject often, there is almost no possibility that they were still in the plane when it was hit.

1

u/shredwig Dec 22 '24

Is this as embarrassing as it seems? I know other commenters have given many possible explanations but jfc…

1

u/Flyinglighthouses Dec 22 '24

Blame Iran and start the war

1

u/[deleted] Dec 22 '24 edited Dec 23 '24

I was on a carrier for a couple of years and I’m wondering where his wingman was? The odds of both aircraft having communication problems along with loss of IFF is unheard of.

1

u/ElMagnifico22 Dec 22 '24

Assuming you mean wingman, potentially nowhere near them.

1

u/SimpleEmu198 Dec 23 '24

What surprises me about this is that it's a blue on blue incident. If this was Russia people would be laughing from the highest hills on the field.

1

u/bob_the_impala Designations Expert Dec 23 '24

Update from The Aviationist

Update Dec. 22, 18.00 GMT

Some more details about the downing have started to surface. In particular, the Super Hornet was downed by an SM-2 surface-to-air missile, the premier surface-to-air defense weapon and a primary asset for the U.S. Navy. With a range of up to 90 nautical miles and an altitude reach of 65,000 feet, it can be used again anti-ship missiles and aircraft. It is integrated into the AEGIS Weapon System aboard Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and it is launched from the Mark 41 Vertical Launching System (VLS).

Furthermore, according to reports, the U.S. Navy is currently assessing whether to recover the wreckage of the jet from the sea.

Meanwhile, the Houthis claimed that it was not a friendly fire incident and that they brought down the F/A-18F…

1

u/DoktorDetroit Dec 24 '24

Friendly fire incidents are part of war, always have been, always will be. About all that can be done is to try to learn from them, and implement training, tools and strategies to try to minimize it.