The U.S. military has said that it mistakenly shot down one of its own fighter aircraft over the Red Sea early on Sunday, forcing both pilots to eject. The aircrew were rescued, one of whom received minor injuries, after the “apparent case of friendly fire,” which is being investigated, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. The ship that fired the missile and the aircraft belonged to the U.S. Navy.
The navy fighter was a F/A-18 Hornet flying off the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman. The statement said one of the carrier’s escort ships, the missile cruiser Gettysburg, “mistakenly fired on and hit” the plane.
The Red Sea has been a hotbed of military activity for more than a year as U.S. forces battle Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia, which has carried out attacks against shipping in the region. The U.S. military said it had fired on Houthi drones and missiles over the Red Sea on Saturday and had attacked command-and-control and missile storage sites in Sanaa.
The U.S. military said it conducted precision airstrikes on Saturday against a missile storage facility and a command-and-control facility operated by Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.
In a statement, the U.S. military’s Central Command said the strikes aimed to “disrupt and degrade Houthi operations, such as attacks against U.S. Navy warships and merchant vessels in the Southern Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb, and Gulf of Aden”.
The U.S. Navy also said it struck multiple Houthi one-way drones and an anti-ship cruise missile over the Red Sea.
Saturday’s strike followed a similar attack last week by U.S. aircraft against a command and control facility operated by the Houthis, which control much of Yemen.
On Thursday, Israel launched strikes against ports and energy infrastructure in Houthi-held parts of Yemen. It threatened more attacks against the group, which has launched hundreds of missiles at Israel over the past year.
The Iran-backed rebel group in Yemen has been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea for well over a year to try to enforce a naval blockade on Israel, claiming they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel’s year-long war in Gaza.
Team Bharatshakti
(With inputs from Reuters)
