Sea Hawk helicopter and F/A-18 Super Hornet go down during routine operations, all crew rescued
Two US Navy aircraft from the USS Nimitz — a Sea Hawk helicopter and an F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet — crashed during separate “routine operations” over the South China Sea on Sunday, with all five crew members rescued and in stable condition as the Navy investigates both incidents.
The US Pacific Fleet — the Navy’s largest operational command — said in a post on X that around 2:54 p.m. local time, an MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter assigned to the “Battle Cats” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 73 crashed in the South China Sea while conducting routine operations from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68).
Search-and-rescue teams from Carrier Strike Group 11, operating alongside the Nimitz, quickly launched recovery efforts and safely pulled all three helicopter crew members from the water.
Officials said the personnel were returned to the carrier for medical evaluation and were later confirmed to be in stable condition.
Roughly 30 minutes after the helicopter incident, an F/A-18F Super Hornet from the Nimitz, assigned to the “Fighting Redcocks” of Strike Fighter Squadron 22, also went down in the South China Sea during flight operations.
Search-and-rescue teams again responded swiftly, recovering the jet’s two crew members, who had successfully ejected before the aircraft hit the water. Both aviators were transported back to the Nimitz and are reported to be in stable condition.
The US Pacific Fleet said in a statement that all five service members involved in the crashes are safe and accounted for.
The causes of both incidents remain under investigation.
The Navy has not released additional details about weather conditions, possible mechanical issues, or the nature of the training missions being conducted at the time of the crashes.
The USS Nimitz, the Navy’s oldest active aircraft carrier, is deployed in the Indo-Pacific region as part of Carrier Strike Group 11, which routinely conducts freedom-of-navigation and maritime security operations in the South China Sea—waters that have become increasingly contested amid rising tensions between the US and China.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country has tested a new, nuclear-capable missile and is preparing to deploy it.
Oct. 26 Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country has tested a new, nuclear-capable missile and is preparing to deploy it.
Putin’s military maneuver comes just after a planned meeting with President Donald Trump collapsed.
The weapon runs on nuclear power, which makes it capable of flying much further than other missiles, according to the Kremlin, and is able to evade missile detection and defense systems.
« This is a unique product that no one in the world has, Putin, dressed in military fatigues, said during a meeting with military commanders, according to a video posted by the Kremlin. « We need to identify potential uses and begin preparing the infrastructure for deploying this weapon in our armed forces. »
Valery V. Gerasimov, general staff of the Russian armed forces, said the missile had remained in flight for 15 hours and traveled 8,700 miles during testing.
« It is a tiny flying Chernobyl », Gerasimov said during a briefing, referring to a nuclear power plant in Ukraine that became widely known for a catastrophic explosion in 1986.
The missile, known as the SSC-X-9, has been in development for years, and while Putin’s announcement was not a surprise, nuclear experts say it is a bad turn of events.
« This is a bad development », said Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear nonproliferation expert at Middlebury College. « It is one more science fiction weapon that is going to be destabilizing and hard to address in arms control. »
Putin’s announcement of the missile revives the back and forth between the United States and Russia over nuclear arms, but the first action since President Donald Trump took office in January.
It is the latest in a long series of volleys over nuclear arms between the two countries stretching back decades.