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New investigative reports in a high-profile and expensive series navy Accidents during the US-led campaign against yemen‘S Houthi The mutineers revealed that the military faced the most intense ongoing sea battle since World War II, taking a heavy toll on ships and personnel.
The four reports released Thursday cover a “friendly fire” incident in December 2024 in which the cruiser USS Gettysburg fired at two fighter jets from the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, shooting one down, as well as Truman’s collision with a merchant ship and the loss of two more multimillion-dollar jets from the carrier in accidents earlier this year.
Overall, the report paints a picture of an aircraft carrier that was not only under regular missile attacks, which put the crew under stress, but other operational demands also put pressure on top leaders to such an extent that the ship’s captains and sailors were extremely sleep-deprived. It was the halfway point of an eight-month deployment that originally lasted six months.
A report also found that, in some parts of the ship, intense combat operations had “led to numbness among the crew” and some sailors “forgot the purpose of their role in the mission.”
The four preventable accidents cost the Navy more than $100 million, resulting in three lost planes and the loss of the Truman, as well as the injuries to many sailors. Although no one died, many accidents depended on only a few seconds of reaction time.
‘A warning’ for the Navy
The investigation into Truman’s collision with a merchant liner stated that “had the collision occurred 100 feet further, the impact would probably have pierced the berthing compartment containing 120 sleeping sailors.”
The report states that Captain Dave Snowden, Truman’s commander at the time, reduced the angle of collision and delayed the time of impact, preventing more significant damage and potential loss of life in the seconds before collision.
Bradley Martin, a senior policy researcher at RAND and a retired Navy captain, said the accidents with the Truman were a “wake-up call” for the Navy about the demands of war and the dangers of overexpanding ships and their crews.
“The clear message from this deployment is that the Navy is unprepared to deal with the reality of extended war,” Martin said. He said Truman was “clearly at a point where he was walking on a hard edge.”
The campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen began in October 2023 when the militants began launching drones and missiles at ships in the Red Sea amid the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The US military operation to counter the Houthis began under then-President Joe Biden and President donald trump The campaign continued.
It culminated in a month-long bombing campaign earlier this year, during which Defense Secretary pete hegseth Shared sensitive information about the strike on Signal chat. The Pentagon’s inspector general said Thursday the move endangered U.S. troops, even though Hegseth had the authority to declassify the material.
Unclear accountability after major accidents
It is unclear what the Navy did to hold most of the sailors and leaders accountable, as those parts of the report were redacted. The Navy publicly relieved Snowden of command about a week after the collision with the merchant ship.
The Navy’s second-highest ranking officer, Admiral James Kilby, assured reporters Thursday that “accountability actions were taken against all operators involved” in the four crashes, but he did not provide any details.
RAND’s Martin said there should be individual accountability, but added that “some of it is a matter of the Navy demanding too much and figuring out what happens when too much is demanded.”
“The level of air threat that was coming from the Houthis, it’s nothing like you would get from China, but it was enough to create tensions,” Martin said. “And I think what you saw was a very poor readiness and preparation.”
All four investigations revolve around Truman. The ship was the third aircraft carrier sent to the region, arriving in December 2024.
Firing on American fighter planes and collision in the sea
Truman conducted her first defensive strike against the Houthis on December 22, 2024, and other ships in the carrier’s strike group spent several hours defending against retaliatory cruise missiles and attacking drones.
The USS Gettysburg, a ship in the strike group, mistook several Truman F/A-18F fighters for more Houthi missiles and attacked two of them. The heavily redacted report cited problems primarily due to the sailors at Gettysburg’s combat information center being poorly trained and overly dependent on technology.
One jet ejected the troops before the missile struck, while the ship intercepted another missile shortly before impact.
In February, sailors on the Truman told investigators that they felt “the stress of a pressured schedule and a culture of ‘just getting it done’.”
As it prepared to head back to the Red Sea after the port visit, it had to pass through the highly trafficked waters just outside the Suez Canal. Running behind schedule, an officer drove the giant aircraft carrier at a speed that investigators later described as unsafe. After stopping the engines it would have taken about a mile and a half to stop.
As a merchant ship came into the carrier’s path, the officer did not take enough action to avoid danger, the report found, listing his actions as the top reason for the collision. The commander and the ship’s navigator were also blamed for not fully understanding the risks of transit.
Loss of two more Navy jets
The new commander, Captain Christopher Hill, told investigators that once the ship returned to the Red Sea, the crew was conducting combat missions and had been “flying every day with little exception” since 15 March.
In April, the ship took a sharp turn to avoid an incoming Houthi missile as sailors in the hangar were moving aircraft around. As Truman began to lean into the turn, the jet began to slide.
Sailors aboard the jet told investigators that as the plane slid off the deck and into the ocean, its landing wheels were spinning despite the sailor inside the plane “actively attempting to apply the brakes.”
The deck was also far dirtier and more slippery than usual, partly because “the high operational tempo of combat flight operations hindered the regular 10-day scrub” that was required.
In May, an F/A-18F fighter jet crashed into the water while attempting to land on Truman. The investigation found that a cable designed to stop the 50,000-pound jet a few hundred feet broke midway through landing. This is because poor maintenance of equipment means that a vital part is missing in the system.
After reading the investigation, Rear Admiral Sean Bailey, then commander of Truman’s strike group, said that maintenance had been allowed to “fall to the level of abject failure.”
However, the investigators also noted that “staff struggled to balance maintenance requirements with operational requirements” and that “many personnel identified operational speed as one of the most significant challenges” for sailors tasked with maintaining equipment.