How Close Was It? Navy Almost Hits Own Jets

Aerial view of a naval ship navigating through the ocean

A U.S. Navy cruiser nearly shot down our own fighter jets during a chaotic night in the Red Sea, exposing how years of politicized distractions and weak leadership left warfighters paying the price.

Story Snapshot

Aegis cruiser USS Gettysburg fired missiles at friendly F/A-18F Super Hornets misidentified as Houthi anti-ship missiles during a 2024 night mission in the Red Sea.
Navy investigations say the near-fratricide and three other mishaps on the same deployment were preventable failures of training, leadership, and procedures.
The four mishaps cost about $164 million and shook trust between carrier aviators and surface combatants.
Trump’s post-Biden Pentagon is now under pressure to rebuild readiness, strip out woke distractions, and refocus on warfighting competence.

Near-Disaster Over the Red Sea

On a December 2024 night in the Red Sea, the guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg stood guard for the carrier USS Harry S. Truman as two F/A-18F Super Hornets returned from a mission. In the ship’s combat information center, radar operators saw fast, low-flying tracks and concluded they were inbound Houthi anti-ship missiles. Acting on that misidentification, Gettysburg launched surface-to-air interceptors at what were, in reality, friendly American jets.

The missiles missed, and the fighters survived, but Navy investigators later labeled the event a near-fratricide that could have been “catastrophic” if the shots had connected. The incident did not occur in an exercise or simulation; it unfolded in a real combat theater with real threats. That stark fact has alarmed many Americans who assume that with the billions poured into defense, our forces should never come this close to shooting down their own.

A Pattern of Preventable Mishaps and Leadership Failure

The Gettysburg launch was only one of four serious mishaps involving the Truman Carrier Strike Group on that same deployment. Official investigations tied together the near-fratricide, a separate collision involving USS Harry S. Truman, and the loss of three F/A-18 Super Hornets in other accidents. Across those events, the Navy estimated roughly $164 million in losses and damage, a staggering bill that ultimately lands on taxpayers already battered by years of Washington’s reckless spending.

Investigators did not blame hardware, radar, or missiles. They pointed instead to systemic breakdowns in training, watchstanding, identification procedures, and risk management. On Gettysburg, air tracks were not properly correlated with friendly flight plans, coordination with the carrier and air wing fell short, and the process for confirming what the crew was seeing failed under pressure. Rather than a freak one-off error, the four mishaps were described as preventable and symptomatic of deeper problems.

How Biden-Era Priorities Weakened Readiness

For many conservative Americans, those “deeper problems” look a lot like the inevitable result of the Biden-era Pentagon that spent more energy on climate agendas, DEI bureaucracy, and pronoun training than on marksmanship, navigation, and air defense. While Houthis were firing real missiles into one of the world’s key shipping lanes, senior leaders in Washington were often more focused on social engineering than sharpening the fleet’s warfighting edge. The Truman deployment’s mishaps were an expensive, dangerous bill for that neglect.

Carrier aviation and surface warfare are demanding professions that leave no room for muddled priorities. When ships and squadrons are pulled into endless briefings on ideology while budgets are siphoned into pet globalist projects, something has to give—and too often, it is time on the range, in the simulator, or underway practicing complex scenarios. The Gettysburg incident is a brutal reminder that when training and standards slip, the consequences are measured in lives and aircraft, not just press releases.

Trust, Morale, and the Human Cost for Warfighters

For the F/A-18 crews who suddenly found their own cruiser shooting at them, the investigation’s findings are not an abstract critique of doctrine. Any fighter pilot launching off a carrier now has to wonder whether the surface combatants meant to protect them can reliably distinguish friend from foe on a tense night with multiple tracks in the air. That kind of doubt corrodes trust within a strike group and adds another layer of mental load in already high-risk operations.

On the surface warfare side, sailors in Gettysburg’s combat information center were operating in a truly dangerous environment with real Houthi missiles and drones in play. They knew a delayed response to a genuine inbound weapon could mean a dead carrier and hundreds of American casualties. Training and procedures exist precisely to help them make the right call in those moments. When the institution fails to give them the repetitions, standards, and leadership they deserve, the blame lies higher than the watch floor.

Trump’s Pentagon Faces a Hard Reset Challenge

With Trump back in the White House, his national security team is now inheriting a force that has endured both operational strain and years of politicized management. The Truman investigations underline how urgently the Pentagon must refocus on fundamentals: lethal proficiency, disciplined watchstanding, and crystal-clear rules for identification and engagement. Conservative voters who demanded an end to woke military experiments expect this administration to strip away distractions and measure leaders by combat readiness, not social metrics.

#ICYMI Navy cruiser mistook fighter jets for incoming missiles during chaotic night https://t.co/zLj8qJRljw

— Jeff_Schogol (@JSchogol73030) December 5, 2025

Restoring confidence will mean more than new PowerPoints about lessons learned. It will require hard, sometimes uncomfortable accountability for preventable failures, relentless training in integrated air and missile defense, and a willingness to say no to every nonessential agenda item that pulls sailors and aviators away from their core mission. The near-disaster over the Red Sea is a warning shot: America cannot afford a Navy that is anything less than razor sharp when the shooting starts.