I’m surprised this story hasn’t received more attention. Over the weekend a Navy helicopter and jet crashed in the South China Sea. Crews were safe. From Seth Robson at Stars and Stripes:
All five crew members survived separate crashes Sunday of a Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter and an MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter in the South China Sea, according to the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Both aircraft were operating from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, according to the fleet. “At approximately 2:45 p.m. local time, a U.S. Navy MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter, assigned to the ‘Battle Cats’ of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 73 went down in the waters of the South China Sea while conducting routine operations from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz,” the fleet posted Monday on X. “Search and rescue assets assigned to Carrier Strike Group 11 safely recovered all three crew members. “
The losses have been blamed by some on defects in the fuel which seems far-fetched to me. Lately I’ve been seeing some speculations about Chinese electronic interference.
I recognize that military activity is a risky, chancy business but losing two aircraft over a weekend seems, well, unusual to me. At the very least it’s a lost of $100 million dollars. Whatever the cause I would think it worthy of more thought than the incidents seem to be receiving.
What happened?
They had an F 18 fall off the deck in April and another F-18 overshoot the cable and fall into the ocean in May. Maybe they should spend less time working out and more time learning to fly the planes.
More seriously, this is 4 costly accidents in 7 months. If the Secretary of the Navy wasn’t in that office just because he was a campaign donor (no experience even distantly related to the military) and if the Sec of War was put in place because he had relevant experience besides being a TV host, this would be getting a lot of attention.
Steve
So, your notion is that the New York Times,, Associated Press, Washington Post, and ABC, NBC, and CBS aren’t making it an issue because they’re protecting Trump appointees?
Since most of the press walked out of the Pentagon, expect little interest in pursuing this story. Imagine the board of inquiry report will draw no attention unless the families of the survivors sue or some such.
As to what happened, at this point who knows.
The aforementioned buffoons should be holding press conferences and meeting with Congress. It’s kind of hard for most of the press to meet with anyone from the Pentagon since they can only print what they are allowed anyway. Why bother?
Steve