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A U.S. Navy helicopter and F/A-18F fighter jet both separately went down in the South China Sea on Sunday, the U.S. Pacific Fleet confirmed, raising eyebrows and prompting questions about the timing and reasons behind the incidents in a strategically important region. The Sea Hawk helicopter and Super Hornet fighter jet went down within half an hour of one another while conducting “routine operations” in the South China Sea from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, the military said. Search and rescue teams safely recovered all three crew members of the Sea Hawk helicopter, and the two on board the Super Hornet. All personnel are “in stable condition,” and investigations are ongoing, the Pacific Fleet said. Newsweek has reached out to the Pacific Fleet for further comment. A file photo shows an MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter landing aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in the South China Sea on February 12, 2023. President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday en route to Japan, shrugged off suggestions of ill intent and said “they think it might be bad fuel.” “We’re going to find out,” he added. “Nothing to hide. We’ll find out.” “While it’s very early days to determine what brought down both vehicles, the fact that two aircraft were brought down in short order in a deeply geostrategic and contested environment must be taken into account,” said John Hemmings, the deputy director for geopolitics at the U.K. think tank, the Council on Geostrategy. The U.S. has said it is pivoting away from its longstanding presence in Europe to focus on the Indo-Pacific, which includes the contested and trade-heavy South China Sea where Beijing is asserting itself. ‘Certainly Unusual’ The circumstances surrounding the crashes are still very unclear, including factors like the conditions the helicopter and the aircraft were operating in at the time. Observers say aircraft carrier training exercises and operations can be risky, and it’s too early to draw conclusions on the causes. But “it’s certainly unusual to have two on the same day,” said Matthew Savill, the director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a British think tank. It is “odd for two aircraft to go down in separate instances, so close together in time,” added Dan Rice, a former aide to Ukraine’s commander in chief and West Point graduate currently the president of American University Kyiv. The U.S. Navy is likely to be on high alert, Rice told Newsweek. “We are in an age when the vulnerability of digital supply chains—including into military platforms—is a distinct possibility,” Hemmings told Newsweek. “That’s not to say that these aircraft were deliberately subject to some sort of capability that overrode their systems, but certainly, I would hope to see the U.S. Navy recovering the platforms for analysis after full debrief sessions with both sets of pilots, noting any ‘unfriendly’ vessels operating nearby.” But electrical systems have a tough time operating over the ocean generally, Hemmings said. The Sea Hawk helicopter went down at around 2:45 p.m. local time, followed by the F/A-18F aircraft at roughly 3:15 p.m. The USS Nimitz is the US Navy’s oldest aircraft carrier and is scheduled to be decommissioned next year. Experts say this is unlikely to be related to the two incidents on Sunday. “Carrier operations are fearsomely complicated, especially on a big and busy one like the Nimitz,” Savill told Newsweek. “There are any number of small things that can go wrong which can have dangerous consequences.” The Sea Hawk helicopter belonged to the “Battle Cats” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 73, while the Super Hornet was operated by the “Fighting Redcocks” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 22.
