In a stunning turn of events that has raised eyebrows across the defense community, both a fighter jet and a helicopter assigned to the USS Nimitz crashed into the South China Sea within a half-hour of each other — a rare and troubling coincidence during the carrier’s final deployment.
According to a statement from the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet, all five crew members — three aboard the MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter and two in the F/A-18F Super Hornet — were rescued and are reported to be in stable condition. The causes of the incidents are under investigation, but no signs of enemy engagement or sabotage have been found.
Speaking aboard Air Force One en route to Tokyo, President Donald Trump suggested that “bad fuel” might be to blame, ruling out foul play and emphasizing that there was “nothing to hide.”
While accidents at sea are not uncommon in high-tempo operations, the back-to-back nature of these two crashes, involving different aircraft types, is a serious concern — and not the first mishap to rattle the Navy’s aviation corps in recent months.
The USS Nimitz, an aging titan of American naval power, is on its swan song deployment after spending the summer in the Middle East responding to Houthi threats on commercial vessels. It’s a high-stakes theater, with carriers operating at intense pace under heavy operational demands. And it’s not alone in encountering trouble.
Its sister ship, the USS Harry S. Truman, has been plagued by a series of disturbing accidents in recent months. In December, the USS Gettysburg, a guided-missile cruiser escorting the Truman, mistakenly shot down one of its own F/A-18 jets. In April, another F/A-18 rolled off the Truman’s hangar deck into the Red Sea. Then in May, yet another fighter failed to trap its landing cables and went overboard, forcing both pilots to eject.
Fortunately, no lives were lost in any of these incidents — but the pattern is impossible to ignore.
While the Navy continues its investigations, the operational readiness of America’s aging carrier fleet is under renewed scrutiny. The Nimitz, which entered service in 1975, is due to be decommissioned — and these latest incidents may underscore why. Years of relentless deployments have taken their toll on both crew and machinery.
At a time when naval presence in the Indo-Pacific is critical to countering Chinese assertiveness, the U.S. cannot afford repeat failures or cascading technical errors.
