USN Hornet Shot Down in Friendly Fire Incident, pilots safe

[FourWheelDrift]

https://news.usni.org/2024/12/21/u-s-super-hornet-...

The Super Hornet, assigned to aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), was flying over the Red Sea when guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg (CG-64) fired upon it, according to the CENTCOM statement.

They just can't get over Gettysburg.

[IanH755]

The cause will eventually filter through into the public domain but as Yemen doesn't own any fast jets, that makes this shoot-down less likely to be a deliberately made decision (ie "Shoot down that enemy A/C, oh oh it's ours") so I wonder if the AEGIS was instead put into Auto when the Houthis were shooting back, which would cause the system to engage anything not squawking an IFF ident?

[98elise]

IanH755 said:

The cause will eventually filter through into the public domain but as Yemen doesn't own any fast jets, that makes this shoot-down less likely to be a deliberately made decision (ie "Shoot down that enemy A/C, oh oh it's ours") so I wonder if the AEGIS was instead put into Auto when the Houthis were shooting back, which would cause the system to engage anything not squawking an IFF ident?

Why wouldn't it be transmitting IFF though?

Phalanx on the other hand doesn't use IFF so if it was in Auto (during an attack) and the aircraft looked like a threat, it's going to get shot at.

[Austin Prefect]

Apparently there were two Hornets shot at. The crew of the second had time to transmit 'please stop shooting at us' or words to that effect so the missile guidance was switched off in time for the second missile to miss.


This does imply a failure at the ship end rather than the aircraft end.

[Dbag101]

U.S. blue on blues are nothing new……

[Boozy]

“Mooch” and his guest gave some good insider detail here.

https://www.youtube.com/live/yoYOsX2GpX4?si=SfdksF...