Fighter jet landing goes wrong on carrier, Yemen’s Houthis assessing damage

Aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman is moored near Split, Croatia, Feb. 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic, File)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — An F/A-18 fighter jet landing on the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in the Red Sea went overboard, forcing its two pilots to eject, a defence official told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The incident Tuesday marks the latest mishap to mar the deployment of the Truman, which has been essential in the airstrike campaign by the United States against Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump and Oman’s foreign minister both said that a ceasefire had been reached with the Houthis, who would no longer target ships in the Red Sea corridor.

A Houthi spokesman early Thursday sought to portray the ceasefire as a victory for the rebels, describing it as America “stopping aggression in exchange for stopping attacks.” The rebels claimed a drone attack on Israel on Wednesday, something acknowledged by the Israeli military without it being attributed to the rebels.

“It is ridiculous for Washington to claim that Sana’a raised the flag of surrender, but this is not important,” Hashem Sharaf al-Din said in a statement carried by the state-run SABA news agency. “What is important is that Yemen’s victory represented a major shift in the balance of power in favor of Yemen, which was able to force America to halt its aggression and stop its attacks.”

Trump, speaking in the Oval Office on Wednesday, said he expects the Houthis in Yemen to uphold their commitment to stop firing on cargo vessels in the Red Sea.

“Hopefully that’s over with, and they’ll leave those ships alone,” he said. “We take their word for it.”

Meanwhile, the Houthis continue to assess the damage after daytime Israeli airstrikes targeted Yemen’s rebel-held capital of Sanaa.

Landing goes wrong on carrier

The F/A-18 Super Hornet landed on the Truman after a flight, but “the arrestment failed,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the incident now under investigation.

“Arrestment” refers to the hook system used by aircraft landing on carriers, which catches steel wire ropes on the flight deck. It remains unclear what part of the system failed.

The two pilots on board were later rescued by a helicopter and suffered minor injuries in the incident, the official added. No one on the flight deck was hurt.

CNN first reported on the incident.

Tuesday’s incident was the latest to see the Navy lose an F/A-18, which cost about $60 million. In April, another F/A-18 fighter jet slipped off the hangar deck of the Truman and fell into the Red Sea. The crew members who were in the pilot seat of the Super Hornet and on the small towing tractor both jumped away.

In December, the guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg mistakenly shot down an F/A-18 after ships earlier shot down multiple Houthi drones and an anti-ship cruise missile launched by the rebels. Both aviators in that incident also survived.

And in February, the Truman collided with a merchant vessel near Port Said, Egypt.

The Truman, based out of Norfolk, Virginia, has seen its deployment extended multiple times amid the Houthi airstrike campaign. It had been joined recently by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier operating out of the Arabian Sea.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote on the social platform X that an investigation was underway and that “this aircraft was not struck by the Houthis.”

“The Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group remains fully mission-capable,” he added.

Rebels survey Sanaa’s devastated airport

The Israeli attack on Tuesday that targeted Sanaa International Airport devastated the airfield. Khaled al-Shaif, the head of the airport, told the Houthis’ al-Masirah satellite news channel that the Israeli strike destroyed the airport’s terminal and left craters in its runway.

Satellite images from Maxar Technologies showed craters and destroyed aircraft on the taxiways of the airfield.

At least six passenger planes were struck, including three belonging to Yemenia Airways, the country’s flag-carrying airline, he said. That leaves the airline with only one functional aircraft, which was spared only because it had left earlier in the day on a flight to Amman, Jordan. He put overall damage there at $500 million.

With the damage, the airport was now out of service, al-Shaif said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said the strikes on the airport, as well as earlier Israeli strikes on Hodeida’s seaport, affected “vital gateways for humanitarian aid and basic essentials such as food and medical supplies.”

“After more than a decade of conflict in Yemen, civilians and the infrastructure they rely on cannot endure any further strain,” it added.

Houthi attacks on shipping

The Houthis had been waging persistent missile and drone attacks against commercial and military ships in the region in what the group’s leadership has described as an effort to end Israel’s offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

From November 2023 until January 2025, the Houthis targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two of them and killing four sailors. That has greatly reduced the flow of trade through the Red Sea corridor, which typically sees $1 trillion of goods move through it annually.

The Houthis paused attacks in a self-imposed ceasefire until the U.S. launched a broad assault against the rebels in mid-March. Meanwhile, a wider, decadelong war in Yemen between the Houthis and the country’s exiled government, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, remains in a statemate.

By Jon Gambrell