Red Sea accident: US Navy pilots survive friendly fire from USS Gettysburg

The potentially disastrous mistake underlines the dangers of a mission the United States has been involved in for more than a year to counter Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Photo / 123rf

Two US Navy pilots were shot down over the Red Sea on Sunday in “an apparent case of friendly fire”, the US military said.

Iran-backed Yemen Houthi rebels said Sunday that they had “attacked” the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman a day earlier in an operation that led to “the shooting down of an F-18 aircraft” and thwarted “US-British aggression” against Yemen.

United States Central Command (Centcom) said both American pilots were found alive, but “initial assessments indicate that one of the crew suffered minor injuries.”

The incident “was not the result of hostile fire and a full investigation is underway,” Centcom said.

The potentially disastrous error underlines the dangers of a mission the United States has been involved in for more than a year to deal with the crisis. The Houthi rebels in Yemen.