Marine Corps Capt. Earl Ehrhart never shot down five or more Houthi drones according to the U.S. Navy, but the media indicated that he did.
Marine Corps Capt. Earl Ehrhart never shot down five or more Houthi drones according to the U.S. Navy, but the media indicated that he did.
Ehrhart’s story has its origins in a BBC piece that first ran on February 12. In it, a BBC correspondent said that Ehrhart had shot down seven Houthi drones while flying an AV-8B Harrier from the USS Bataan, a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship – basically a light aircraft carrier.
The BBC’s correspondent was embarked on Bataan while it was in the eastern Mediterranean (where it remains) sometime in mid-January after it had returned from the Red Sea. Earlier in the month, the ship had participated in air strikes launched by the U.S. and UK against Houthi targets in Yemen according to the article.
Seeking to learn more about the nature of the drone engagements that Capt. Ehrhart and his squadron, VMA-231, had flown in, I emailed the Marine Harrier pilot directly on the Bataan where he is embarked as a part of the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) on February 15.
On the 20th, I received a call from Italy from the U.S. Navy’s Sixth Fleet. Sixth Fleet public affairs had called to respond to the questions I had put to Capt. Ehrhart.
On-background, I was told that neither Ehrhart nor any other Harrier pilot from the VMA-231 detachment aboard Bataan had shot down any Houthi drones. Nor had they made any Houthi drone intercepts.
According to the Navy, the BBC had gotten it wrong, using language that implied that Houthi drones had been shot down.
The Navy (presumably Sixth Fleet), and or U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), subsequently requested that the BBC change the language in the article. There appears to have been no formal correction by the BBC.
The initial version of the BBC’s article, entitled, The fighter pilots hunting Houthi drones over the Red Sea, was widely picked up and repeated in global media with articles stating the Capt. Ehrhart was the first American ace since the Vietnam War, albeit a new kind of ace – one who shot down unmanned aircraft.
As noted above, the Navy says that didn’t happen.
