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navy Investigation reports into four accidents were released Thursday, all involving the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, while it was sent to attack shipping off Yemen. Houthi Rebel.
Four reports cover a friendly fire incident in December 2024 that saw the cruiser USS Gettysburg Truman’s two fighters, shooting one down, as well as the carrier’s collision with a merchant ship and the loss of two more jets in accidents earlier in the year.
Overall, the reports paint a picture of an aircraft carrier that was beset not only by regular missile attacks, which put pressure on the crew, but other operational demands that put pressure on top leaders.
Here’s a closer look at the findings of each accident:
Navy ship fired on American fighter planes
Truman conducted her first defensive strike against Houthi positions and aircraft on December 22, 2024, and other ships in the strike group spent several hours defending themselves against Houthi-launched anti-ship cruise missiles and attack drones.
One of the ships in the strike group, USS Gettysburg, mistook several of the carrier’s F/A-18F fighters for more Houthi missiles and attacked two of them. The heavily redacted report faulted the sailors in Gettysburg’s combat information center for being poorly trained and overly reliant on technology.
One jet ejected the troops before the missile struck, while the ship intercepted another missile shortly before impact.
collide with a merchant ship
Months later, in February, sailors aboard the ship told investigators that they were “feeling the stress of a pressured schedule and a culture of ‘just get it done’.”
As the ship prepared to return red sea After the trip to port, it had to pass through the highly trafficked waters just outside the Suez Canal. Running behind schedule, a navigation officer drove the huge aircraft carrier at such a speed that it would need about a mile and a half to stop after stopping the engines. Investigators later said the speed was unsafe.
The report found that as a merchant ship moved on a collision course with the carrier, the officer in charge did not take adequate action to get out of danger, with his actions listed as the top cause for the collision.
Investigators also blamed the ship’s other senior officers, including the commander and the ship’s navigator, for not fully understanding the risks of the maneuvers required for transit.
A navy jet fell into the water
Once the ship returned to the Red Sea, the crew’s tensions did not subside. Captain Christopher Hill told investigators that the crew had been flying combat missions since March 15 and “were flying every day with little exception”.
The report said the ship was experiencing “myriad drone and cruise missile attacks, multiple combat missions, additional accidents, and deployment extensions”, which increased stress and took time away from routine maintenance and upkeep of the ship and equipment.
During one attack in April, the ship’s bridge was ordered to make a sharp turn to avoid an incoming Houthi missile, while sailors in the carrier’s hangar were moving aircraft around before the next day’s operations.
Procedures called for the hangar doors to be closed, but an F/A-18F fighter jet was in the way.
As soon as the sailors started moving the jet forward, the officers started turning the plane rapidly, but they could not inform the sailors present in the hangar. As Truman began to bank down the turn, the jet began to slide.
Sailors piloting the jet later told investigators that as the plane slid off the deck and into the ocean, its landing wheels were spinning freely despite the sailor inside the plane “actively attempting to apply the brakes.”
Contributing was the fact that the deck was dirtier and more slippery than usual, partly because “the high operational tempo of combat flight operations disrupted the regular 10-day scrub” that was required.
Ultimately, the investigation said that with the jet underwater, it was impossible to know for certain why its brakes did not engage, but they recommended removing the sailor responsible for applying the brakes from his qualifications because that service member had “demonstrated deficiencies in the required knowledge and system understanding.”
The cable meant to stop the jet from falling into the water breaks
In the final accident, another F/A-18F fighter jet plunged into the water while attempting to land on Truman in May 2025. The investigation found that a cable designed to stop the 50,000-pound jet only a few hundred feet broke in the middle of landing.
Subsequent investigation revealed that poor maintenance on the equipment meant that the system of cables that connected the wires on the flight deck to the braking hydraulics below deck was missing a part responsible for holding a huge connecting pin in place and stable.
Upon his disappearance, investigators found that the connecting pin gradually moved out of place after at least 50 landings, until it finally failed and came apart.
After reading the investigation, Rear Admiral Sean Bailey, Truman’s strike group commander at the time, said that not only was “this accident entirely preventable” but “the bitter reality is that numerous individuals at all levels of leadership were complicit” in allowing the maintenance of the arresting gear to “degrade to the level of gross failure.”
However, the investigators also noted that “maintenance support personnel struggled to balance maintenance requirements with operational requirements” and that “many personnel identified operational speed as one of the most significant challenges” for sailors working to maintain equipment.
