Navy helicopter, fighter jet both go down in South China Sea: Navy

[riversedge]

Source: abc news



All personnel are safe and in stable condition, U.S. Pacific Fleet said.

October 26, 2025, 6:55 PM


A Navy helicopter and a fighter jet, both conducting routine operations from the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier, went down in the South China Sea about 30 minutes apart Sunday, the U.S. Pacific Fleet said in a statement.

The U.S. Navy MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter went down at about 2:45 p.m. local time. All three crew members were safely recovered, the Navy said.

"Following the incident, separately, at 3:15 p.m., an F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter assigned to the 'Fighting Redcocks' of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 22 also went down in the waters of the South China Sea while conducting routine operations from Nimitz."

"All personnel involved are safe and in stable condition. The cause of both incidents is currently under investigation," the U.S. Pacific Fleet said in the statement.

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Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/International/navy-helicopter-fighter-jet-south-china-sea-navy/story?id=126884335

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Photo from the OP article"

?w=1500


The U.S Navy USS Nimitz (CVN-68), the world's oldest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier sails out of San Diego Bay to the Pacific Ocean to perform readiness drills before returning its homeport of Naval Base Kitsap on November 18, 2024 in San Diego, California. The ship is scheduled to be decommissioned in fiscal 2026.
Kevin Carter/Getty Images

[Ponietz]

1. EMP induced power failures?

[cstanleytech]

3. I was thinking about remote kill switch via a microchip backdoor.

[Ponietz]

5. Like the ships that crashed in Baltimore and NY

Media have been silent on those cause(s).

[Mawspam2]

2. Kegseth approved MAGA pilots?

Were they fatties? With gay beards?

[RussBLib]

4. beard-os

lord knows we have some creative facial hair these days

[AverageOldGuy]

6. What do you bet . . .

. . . the crews of each aircraft were female, beardoes, overweight or some combination of all three?

[IronLionZion]

7. "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action"

― Ian Fleming

Super suspicious for this to happen near China.

[thought crime]

11. At the time Trump is visiting Asia and has to comment on it.

[LudwigPastorius]

8. The UAPs are getting tired of Trump's bullshit?

[Shipwack]

9. A less sinister possibility...

Though I agree something nefarious is possible, it could be something else: fatigue.

Top brass tends to ignore the fact that while ships run continuously, the people that run them need downtime. It would not surprise me that Kegseth is running everyone ragged, because “sleep is for woke weaklings!” (Or some similar crap). All work and no rest makes Jack a careless boy.

This happened to the USN in the 90s(?). There were several major incidents in the span of a couple of weeks. The whole Navy actually stopped operations for a day to have a “Safety Standdown”, where schedules and operations were evaluated.

[70sEraVet]

10. I suspect you are right, Shipwack

I recall back in 1976 (?), the destroyer I was on ran full-speed for three days, which meant NO sleep for Engineering. Then we were ordered to help load LIVE AMMO! One of our guys refused, due to the unnecessary danger, and went to Captain's Mast. I'm ashamed to say, that sailor wasn't ME!
Just an officer driving a crew beyond their limits, hoping for recognition.