Ex Navy guy who worked on F14s. The scenarios you mentioned are spot on, great job. The holes in the swiss cheese lined up. Congrats to the pilots, rescue crews and many others.
@@MaxAfterburnerusa 0:21 What the heck is going on here? Did the missile intentionally bounce off the water before impact? Does it do this to slow down for some reason? I couldn't find any answers about with a quick Google search, but I did find a couple of research papers on anti ship missile fuselage design and sea skimming path optimization. I didn't find any answers that could confirm anything, but the papers lead me to believe that most missiles launched with sea skimming fight paths will impact the water due to a large variety of reasons. So it seems that this is just really common and they just design the missiles to be able to survive and handle impacting the water instead of trying to make the sensors, electronics, and control surfaces fast and precise enough to never touch the water. They just try to make it so the loads aren't to high and they don't lose to much speed instead of putting the most expensive, accurate and quick sensors and controls that would be necessary to fly at extremely low altitude without touching the water. Is this correct?
Yet, sucks for the taxpayer. As much as it's great that nobody was killed. Pilot and wizzo likely stand an inch or two shorter at the very least, a million dollar missile was shot at a $100million dollar jet (fully loaded). That's without the acquirement of another jet and potential training of a new flight crew. In an economy like this, that's no bueno. Even without the f18 and crew, million dollar missile vs a drone at a fraction of the cost is dumb af.
@@Chzydawg You can't look at it as a million dollar missile vs just a cheap drone. It's more about what that missile is saving from being hit by that cheap drone. Air defense is also protecting a target from being destroyed or lives lost, not just destroying the drone.
Man that training is incredible. To process all that information from the missile tracking you to making the decision to eject, knowing all the repercussions, all within the span of seconds is truly amazing. Thank God nobody was taken out. Great breakdown MA.
one important note on IFF. this happened at like 3am local. IFF loads two days at a time to keep things like this from happening. this leads me to believe that the Gettysburg either had a bad load the day before, or they still loaded during flight ops (i would never), got a bad load and no one in combat caught it. edit: Because the gettysburg launched on two f-18s i would think the ship had the iff issue. or the truman was just launching jets all night that had bad crypto. i dont think that would happen.
I too was wondering about a bad Mode 5 Midnight Zulu crypto rollover. But do they not have Link16? One would think they would, and the F18s would have been PPLIs. Maybe they got kicked off the net at midnight and had to re-enter? A lot of things had to go wrong, but after that, it seemed the CSAR op went pretty well.
0:21 What the heck is going on here? Did the missile intentionally bounce off the water before impact? Does it do this to slow down for some reason? I couldn't find any answers about with a quick Google search, but I did find a couple of research papers on anti ship missile fuselage design and sea skimming path optimization. I didn't find any answers that could confirm anything, but the papers lead me to believe that most missiles launched with sea skimming fight paths will impact the water due to a large variety of reasons. So it seems that this is just really common and they just design the missiles to be able to survive and handle impacting the water instead of trying to make the sensors, electronics, and control surfaces fast and precise enough to never touch the water. They just try to make it so the loads aren't to high and they don't lose to much speed instead of putting the most expensive, accurate and quick sensors and controls that would be necessary to fly at extremely low altitude without touching the water. Is this correct?
IFF codes don’t change mid-mission…USAF or USN!! When the F-18 was returning there should have not been a problem. Multiple safeguards are active to prevent so called “friendly fire incidents” from happening today…so HELL NO! 🇺🇸
@@zlm001I don't think it hit the water. Watch it in slow motion. My quess is the missile wants a look up (to minimize ground/water clutter) scenario at the end game so the profile is to go deep and pop up for the kill.
i'm so happy your subscriber count is actually rising significantly, you deserve it brother, just donated 10 bucks, not much but to help buying the hair gel, cheers from Lisbon
This is one of the most interesting videos I've ever watched. Thank you for making this! Please make more in depth content like this. Love the deep dive.
How about the quick thinking of the pilot? To have the wherewithal to understand his plane was the target and punch himself and his WSO out saving their lives. Keep this in mind, they're in the landing pattern, meaning their RWR, countermeasures..etc are all switched off. They have five bubbles, flying dirty (gear and hook down, flaps down) and at approach speed 250-300 knts). So this man is in the hardest, most mentally and physically taxing stage of flight (carrier landing and at low light state), all his defensive equipment is off and he still is visually tracking this missile, calculating it's trajectory, interpretation of the pending threat and ejects. That pilot is the definition of a hero. Also a shout out to the LSO who's quick action to contact the skipper which saved the second bird and crew. Lots of speculation around the root cause of the incident, but one thing definitely is not called to question, and that's the quick reaction and decision making during and after things went horribly wrong. Could have been much worse, but everyone lived to fly another day which is all that matters.
@@--SPQR-- a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. he is the definition of a hero he is being admired for his courage and outstanding achievements in his judgment and saving his wso life
There is always a current day and the next day load in the crypto gear. No way the code was wrong when the aircraft initially launched. Unlikely that two aircraft had a mechanical failure at the same time. If the pilots were airborne at 0000 Zulu, they may not have rolled the codes over to the new day (used to be a manual switch in the cockpit to do so) Also, on older crypto, the codes "zero out" when the landing gear touches the deck in order to prevent the codes from being compromised. Pilots could prevent this by turning a "hold" switch prior to landing. Since these aircraft had previously landed after their first sortie for more fuel, the most likely scenario is that they did not "hold" the codes over and were not checked to ensure the IFF was coded prior to the subsequent launch and had been flying the sortie with no codes on either aircraft. Even if that occurred, there should have been additional safeguards in place with the ship to prevent this from happening.
Keys for at least two consecutive days are loaded before mission, midnight roll over is automatically nowadays with "small" overlap to avoid "time issues" (time source for every IFF device should come any way automatically from secure source). Loosing keys by landing without "hold" would cause visual and audio warning to the pilot as said above.
Excellent video. Great breakdown of this unfortunate event. Honestly, in a high alert situation like what's going on in the Red Sea right now, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. Years ago, I had a conversation with a WW2 naval avaitor who mentioned how often they would experience friendly AA fire while on mission during the war.
Hey Ryan, just a small token of appreciation for the fantastic channel that you’ve created. Maybe one day our paths will cross in a terminal somewhere. Beers are on me, but NOT in the terminal😉
One thing I'm curious about, it sounded like the F-18 crew had to visually ascertain the missile was tracking them, wouldn't their radar warning receiver have been singing at them that they were being targeted ?
Very Good Point.... Apparently friendly missiles targeting friendly aircraft don't have to make such announcements ......It is explained in the investigation briefing after the plane is shot down.
Hey guys, the time of IFF Mode 4 is over, sunset date was (after multiple postponed sunset dates) finally in 2017! So we are now in IFF Mode 5 territory. And @Max Afterburner: there are no radar "reflexions” in IFF Word (at least used once, unwanted of course there are 🙂), since it is secondary radar. This means one way (instead of two way in primary radar world). This means uplink in 1030 MHz (interrogator transmits) and downlink in 1090 MHz (transponder replies).
For reference all of the SM2s are guided by the main SPY-1 radars, the big stop sign arrays on the side of the ship. Terminal guidance only is from the illuminators on the top.
i was just wondering wouldn't the ship locking onto the superhornet give the superhornet pilots radar warnings? I don't think that was mentioned in the vid, just curious😊
@@de7cay934From what I’ve seen other naval aviators say is that they Turn off their RWR (Radar warning receiver) when they are about to land to minimize distractions. So they would have no clue that they were locked.
As we can see, accidents happen. Even to the best of the best. The fog of war ain't helping either. Keep that in mind when y'all discuss shooting down incidents! Drones are truly everywhere!
The air controller on the Hawkeye or the Truman should have seen a bad M4 and RTB the aircraft immediately. I was AIC in the Navy and IFF is ALWAYS monitored and non-negotiable. Bad IFF is a day off from flying or grabbing one of the spare rides.
Why would the Gettysburg shoot at an aircraft so close ? Wouldn’t they have engaged it much earlier? How far was the F-18 from the rest of the fleet? What if those dudes ditched and the plane smacks into the carrier? Does the plane have a “ditch” mode and just fall into the ocean?
excellent breakdown. Thank you. A couple weeks ago I heard that they possibly turned guidance off on the 2nd missile. Thank God for that, because who knows if the crew of the 2nd F-18 would have preemptively ejected as well.
The fact they shot at both jets would point to the IFF code issue being on the ship rather than the jets wouldn't it? I suppose you could have a systemic issue where they made the same mistake on both jets if they were part of the same flight.
What you are describing in the beginning is datalink, which indeed is part of many Semi-Active Radar Homing missiles. But the SARH principle is not about the radar sending guidance signals to the missile. In SARH the radar illuminates the target and the missiles homes on the radar waves relected by the target.
the military does not need to be saying "uncrewed" to describe autonomous or remotely crewed drones just because woman are upset by the phrase "unmanned". Over in my sector they were called "uninhabited areal vehicles", which is even stupider.
Absolutely phenomenal video Neo…so very interesting..Thank you.. a lot of info here..not to be critical because I certainly don’t know what I am talking compared to your experience and expertise but… does any of your critique compromise military communication protocols in reading that email and decoding the crew’s communications
@@MaxAfterburnerusa thanks Neo. Blows my mind how detailed and coordinated everything has to be …now we just need to find out why the ship fired to friendly…
Is the water surfcace bounce an intentional target reaquiring on what you described as semiactive radar? (I stress "intentional")(meaning openloop within a closed loop programming of the sensor data hierarchy)
Dumb question, but I haven't heard anyone mention this; the pilot stated hearing the missile fuse/pop, but was there a confirmed hit on their aircraft after ejecting?
I wonder why the IFF did not do what it was supposed to. I wonder if they were locked on a different target, but the missile went pitbull on the wrong aircraft.
0:21 What the heck is going on here? Did the missile intentionally bounce off the water before impact? Does it do this to slow down for some reason? I couldn't find any answers about with a quick Google search, but I did find a couple of research papers on anti ship missile fuselage design and sea skimming path optimization. I didn't find any answers that could confirm anything, but the papers lead me to believe that most missiles launched with sea skimming fight paths will impact the water due to a large variety of reasons. So it seems that this is just really common and they just design the missiles to be able to survive and handle impacting the water instead of trying to make the sensors, electronics, and control surfaces fast and precise enough to never touch the water. They just try to make it so the loads aren't to high and they don't lose to much speed instead of putting the most expensive, accurate and quick sensors and controls that would be necessary to fly at extremely low altitude without touching the water. Is this correct?
They don't get a radar lock warning till the missile is on top of them anyway. The "radar lock" is the presence of a constant wave radar detection, that doesn't happen till the very end of the engagement with Aegis.
Non aviator, but interested in Aviation, never even considered that the F18 could refuel other planes. Is this a standard config across other military plane types? 🤯
Yeah, when you're operating from a carrier, F18 is what you've gotta use, as the big, land-based tankers can't take off or land from a carrier deck. During my last deployment, I'd say over half of the planes we launched were tankers.
My question is how did it happen not once but twice? I can understand an accident but 2 friendlies? Then again why doesnt a missile have a friendly fire no lock situation in todays tech?
They’re about to land on the ship, which is one of the hardest things to do in aviation. Usually RWR and chaff/flare dispensers are OFF when getting ready to land on the boat. RWR going off is nothing but a distraction when trying to concentrate on landing at night, so either it’s turned off or turned way down. Fighters get painted all the time by radar systems, even friendly’s.
Here are my two Cents for this friendly fire incident: 1. Which US Navy pilot (Mark Lethbridge post on X) would just post this information so shortly after a secret mission on X (no way, that I would swallow this thrown bone!)? 2. If it was indeed a SM-2 missile, that was used, than: a. with properly keyed IFF Mode 5 equipment and b.) well trained crew on ship and airplane, this could mostly never happened! Before they launch the SM-2 missile, they must direct interrogate in IFF Mode 5 lethal mode. Not going into too much details, this is the final last request for approval for friend or foe. Only in case of “no reply” (and this is very unlikely to happen in a correct keyed and tested (before take-off) Mode 5 mission, they would start a missile approach. 3. Some people here mention the case of a “zeroized crypto key” incident (e.g. by touching the landing gear on deck (can be prevented by pushing “hold” on instrument panel)- this would immediately cause a big red IFF Warning on instrument displays and an annoying audio tone trough the headphones! Zeroizing the Mode 5 keys could happen trough a few more incidences. But still, in all these cases, the IFF warning (visual and audio) kicks in. 4. Even with zeroized IFF mode 5 keys, the direct IFF Lethal interrogation would cause an even higher warning on the aircrafts/pilots display and he will definitely know, that they are going to launch a missile at him (at least in this mission environment). After he would be aware, he would send (military emergency trough IFF Mode 5 Level 1 and Level 2) or radio a warning (the “downed pilot” did not mention anything about that) and they would than abort the SM-2 approach, even in flight. 5. Do they really waste so much SM-2 (cost per piece is over 2.4 Million USD) for “lousy” Houthi drones (below 20.000 USD)? Or did they fear an incomming Palestine-2 hypersonic missile from Houtis. 6. A well trained radar operator should definitely distinguish between a flying in F-18 tanker during landing approach (much bigger RCS and way smaller Doppler, just to mention two very clear radar characteristics) and an incoming Palestine-2 hypersonic missile. Just my two cents
My youngest son is Navy. He used to sit in a control room on the ship and he does all the computer stuff for his FA-18 Super Hornets when they fly. He has 17 years in now and is a recruiter in Memphis Tennessee for his last 3 years.
Hi: I watched the whole video all the way through, and one thought in my mind was wondering if the two ejected pilots were in danger of the missile shrapnel while they were parachuting in the air. On the other hand, if the missile hit the plane directly, maybe it did not emit any shrapnel due to the fact that its explosive power was entirely used in destroying the aircraft. Also, did the second missile explode and emit any shrapnel? I think you mentioned what happened in the beginning, but later when you talked about the pilot's narration of the incident afterwards, you did not mention the emitting of any shrapnel in that narration. I also did not get a clear idea of whether the first missile directly struck the aircraft, and exactly what happened with the second missile. Maybe I wasn't listening closely enough.... Regardless, I think if the two Naval Airmen were in any danger from shrapnel while they were parachuting in the air, you would have mentioned that. Thanks!
Danger of shrapnel would depend on range. How long before they punched out and the missile detonated will dictate how far away from the explosion they were. The pilot only mentioned the pop of the fuse, he didn't mention any shrapnel. My understanding, from seeing a few vids about this, is that someone on the destroyer got a call and cut the link to the second missile. That aircraft was able to react faster, being further from the ship and already seeing one F-18 hit by a missile, dove for the deck to gain speed, but they probably still would have been hit if the missile was guiding. Without the radar link the second missile stopped guiding and crashed into the water, close enough that the pilot heard and/or saw it splash down.
Ex Navy guy who worked on F14s. The scenarios you mentioned are spot on, great job. The holes in the swiss cheese lined up. Congrats to the pilots, rescue crews and many others.
Thanks for that! I appreciate your perspective
@@MaxAfterburnerusa 0:21 What the heck is going on here? Did the missile intentionally bounce off the water before impact? Does it do this to slow down for some reason?
I couldn't find any answers about with a quick Google search, but I did find a couple of research papers on anti ship missile fuselage design and sea skimming path optimization. I didn't find any answers that could confirm anything, but the papers lead me to believe that most missiles launched with sea skimming fight paths will impact the water due to a large variety of reasons. So it seems that this is just really common and they just design the missiles to be able to survive and handle impacting the water instead of trying to make the sensors, electronics, and control surfaces fast and precise enough to never touch the water. They just try to make it so the loads aren't to high and they don't lose to much speed instead of putting the most expensive, accurate and quick sensors and controls that would be necessary to fly at extremely low altitude without touching the water.
Is this correct?
Yet, sucks for the taxpayer. As much as it's great that nobody was killed. Pilot and wizzo likely stand an inch or two shorter at the very least, a million dollar missile was shot at a $100million dollar jet (fully loaded). That's without the acquirement of another jet and potential training of a new flight crew.
In an economy like this, that's no bueno.
Even without the f18 and crew, million dollar missile vs a drone at a fraction of the cost is dumb af.
@@Chzydawg You can't look at it as a million dollar missile vs just a cheap drone. It's more about what that missile is saving from being hit by that cheap drone. Air defense is also protecting a target from being destroyed or lives lost, not just destroying the drone.
@@Chzydawg 🇾🇪 💪
Man that training is incredible. To process all that information from the missile tracking you to making the decision to eject, knowing all the repercussions, all within the span of seconds is truly amazing. Thank God nobody was taken out. Great breakdown MA.
Unavoidable explosion coming right at you... Either eject before or after your aircraft is destroyed. It's no choice at all.
one important note on IFF.
this happened at like 3am local.
IFF loads two days at a time to keep things like this from happening.
this leads me to believe that the Gettysburg either had a bad load the day before, or they still loaded during flight ops (i would never), got a bad load and no one in combat caught it.
edit: Because the gettysburg launched on two f-18s i would think the ship had the iff issue. or the truman was just launching jets all night that had bad crypto. i dont think that would happen.
Interesting point thanks!
I too was wondering about a bad Mode 5 Midnight Zulu crypto rollover. But do they not have Link16? One would think they would, and the F18s would have been PPLIs. Maybe they got kicked off the net at midnight and had to re-enter? A lot of things had to go wrong, but after that, it seemed the CSAR op went pretty well.
0:21 What the heck is going on here? Did the missile intentionally bounce off the water before impact? Does it do this to slow down for some reason?
I couldn't find any answers about with a quick Google search, but I did find a couple of research papers on anti ship missile fuselage design and sea skimming path optimization. I didn't find any answers that could confirm anything, but the papers lead me to believe that most missiles launched with sea skimming fight paths will impact the water due to a large variety of reasons. So it seems that this is just really common and they just design the missiles to be able to survive and handle impacting the water instead of trying to make the sensors, electronics, and control surfaces fast and precise enough to never touch the water. They just try to make it so the loads aren't to high and they don't lose to much speed instead of putting the most expensive, accurate and quick sensors and controls that would be necessary to fly at extremely low altitude without touching the water.
Is this correct?
IFF codes don’t change mid-mission…USAF or USN!! When the F-18 was returning there should have not been a problem. Multiple safeguards are active to prevent so called “friendly fire incidents” from happening today…so HELL NO! 🇺🇸
@@zlm001I don't think it hit the water. Watch it in slow motion.
My quess is the missile wants a look up (to minimize ground/water clutter) scenario at the end game so the profile is to go deep and pop up for the kill.
Retired Navy carrier pilot here. Great descriptions, brother. Kept out the acronyms and provided clear, concise explanations. Kudos! ⚓️
Well done to Martin-Baker - they make that ejection seat that saved both of their lives.
i'm so happy your subscriber count is actually rising significantly, you deserve it brother, just donated 10 bucks, not much but to help buying the hair gel, cheers from Lisbon
This is one of the most interesting videos I've ever watched. Thank you for making this! Please make more in depth content like this. Love the deep dive.
Will do! Please share the video!
How about the quick thinking of the pilot? To have the wherewithal to understand his plane was the target and punch himself and his WSO out saving their lives. Keep this in mind, they're in the landing pattern, meaning their RWR, countermeasures..etc are all switched off. They have five bubbles, flying dirty (gear and hook down, flaps down) and at approach speed 250-300 knts). So this man is in the hardest, most mentally and physically taxing stage of flight (carrier landing and at low light state), all his defensive equipment is off and he still is visually tracking this missile, calculating it's trajectory, interpretation of the pending threat and ejects. That pilot is the definition of a hero. Also a shout out to the LSO who's quick action to contact the skipper which saved the second bird and crew. Lots of speculation around the root cause of the incident, but one thing definitely is not called to question, and that's the quick reaction and decision making during and after things went horribly wrong. Could have been much worse, but everyone lived to fly another day which is all that matters.
Definition of a hero.
Please read a dictionary
@@--SPQR-- a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.
he is the definition of a hero he is being admired for his courage and outstanding achievements in his judgment and saving his wso life
It’s amazing the aircrew didn’t catch shrapnel from the close warhead
Always wanted to know more about IFF because of stories like this. Interesting, thanks.
There is always a current day and the next day load in the crypto gear. No way the code was wrong when the aircraft initially launched. Unlikely that two aircraft had a mechanical failure at the same time. If the pilots were airborne at 0000 Zulu, they may not have rolled the codes over to the new day (used to be a manual switch in the cockpit to do so) Also, on older crypto, the codes "zero out" when the landing gear touches the deck in order to prevent the codes from being compromised. Pilots could prevent this by turning a "hold" switch prior to landing. Since these aircraft had previously landed after their first sortie for more fuel, the most likely scenario is that they did not "hold" the codes over and were not checked to ensure the IFF was coded prior to the subsequent launch and had been flying the sortie with no codes on either aircraft. Even if that occurred, there should have been additional safeguards in place with the ship to prevent this from happening.
Excellent breakdown. I’m guessing this is what occurred as well
Keys for at least two consecutive days are loaded before mission, midnight roll over is automatically nowadays with "small" overlap to avoid "time issues" (time source for every IFF device should come any way automatically from secure source). Loosing keys by landing without "hold" would cause visual and audio warning to the pilot as said above.
thanks for the insight and breakdown. awesome content.
Thank you for explaining this event to us, just so much military personnel have to think about to keep all safe, again thank you Ryan.
Thanks for watching! I appreciate your support!
Excellent analysis...........For an Air Force guy / Great job
You are awesome. Thank you for your TH-cam channel. I love aviation. You are top-notch, my brother!
I waited until you video on the topic came out, not watching any of the others. Well worth the wait. Thank you.
Amazing analysis and commentary
Excellent video. Great breakdown of this unfortunate event. Honestly, in a high alert situation like what's going on in the Red Sea right now, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.
Years ago, I had a conversation with a WW2 naval avaitor who mentioned how often they would experience friendly AA fire while on mission during the war.
Great comment thank you !
Thanks!
WOW! Thanks for your support Alex! Support like this helps me keep making videos for everyone. 🫡
Hey Ryan, just a small token of appreciation for the fantastic channel that you’ve created. Maybe one day our paths will cross in a terminal somewhere. Beers are on me, but NOT in the terminal😉
Thanks for the heads up, i watch a lot of your stuff and thought i was subbed...corrected that right away.
One thing I'm curious about, it sounded like the F-18 crew had to visually ascertain the missile was tracking them, wouldn't their radar warning receiver have been singing at them that they were being targeted ?
Very Good Point.... Apparently friendly missiles targeting friendly aircraft don't have to make such announcements ......It is explained in the investigation briefing after the plane is shot down.
@Krisme2x ah thanks
Thanks for the breakdown. Absolutely insane.
Hey guys, the time of IFF Mode 4 is over, sunset date was (after multiple postponed sunset dates) finally in 2017! So we are now in IFF Mode 5 territory.
And @Max Afterburner: there are no radar "reflexions” in IFF Word (at least used once, unwanted of course there are 🙂), since it is secondary radar. This means one way (instead of two way in primary radar world). This means uplink in 1030 MHz (interrogator transmits) and downlink in 1090 MHz (transponder replies).
For reference all of the SM2s are guided by the main SPY-1 radars, the big stop sign arrays on the side of the ship. Terminal guidance only is from the illuminators on the top.
i was just wondering wouldn't the ship locking onto the superhornet give the superhornet pilots radar warnings? I don't think that was mentioned in the vid, just curious😊
@@de7cay934 No the ship tracking wouldn't trigger a lock warning, its just tracking, the CWI isn't involved until the terminal phase.
@@de7cay934From what I’ve seen other naval aviators say is that they Turn off their RWR (Radar warning receiver) when they are about to land to minimize distractions. So they would have no clue that they were locked.
Thank you for the jargon translation! As a civi I was doing good to understand 30% of the post lol
Your analysis of this additional information about the incident is head and shoulders above comparable ones.
Thanks for the explanation.
Awesome breakdown
Great explanation, well done Mate ✈️🇦🇺
Great explanation.
Excellent video... really appreciate it!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Great breakdown! Best one I have heard do far
Awesome! Thank you!
Thanks for largely unbiased answers
Wow Wee Captain🫡 Another EXCELLENT presentation👏 Can't believe your lingo😎 Learned a lot❣️
Very precise that it does spare their own jet. What a professional navy!
you’re more than ‘just a pilot on youtube’!
As we can see, accidents happen. Even to the best of the best. The fog of war ain't helping either. Keep that in mind when y'all discuss shooting down incidents! Drones are truly everywhere!
Thank you! Great report!
Thanks for watching! I appreciate your support.
Really great, succinct analysis !
The air controller on the Hawkeye or the Truman should have seen a bad M4 and RTB the aircraft immediately. I was AIC in the Navy and IFF is ALWAYS monitored and non-negotiable. Bad IFF is a day off from flying or grabbing one of the spare rides.
Lead pursuit would be stationary in the canopy (and getting bigger), pure pursuit will be moving back in the canopy towards six o’clock, no?
Correct
Really good report!
Well done as usual, thanks
Excellent breakdown
Nobody could have explained it better. thank you
Why would the Gettysburg shoot at an aircraft so close ? Wouldn’t they have engaged it much earlier? How far was the F-18 from the rest of the fleet? What if those dudes ditched and the plane smacks into the carrier? Does the plane have a “ditch” mode and just fall into the ocean?
Love getting your perspective on this stuff!
Glad you enjoyed it!
How close was the aircraft to the carrier deck? Also why did missile launch so late if it did see threat in those 2 aircraft?
Great commentary
Thank you!
excellent breakdown. Thank you. A couple weeks ago I heard that they possibly turned guidance off on the 2nd missile. Thank God for that, because who knows if the crew of the 2nd F-18 would have preemptively ejected as well.
Wow. Very informative.
This is all I need TH-cam for now
Thanks.
Best explanation of the dialog that I have heard so far. Subscribe
Thanks for subscribing! I appreciate the support.
The fact they shot at both jets would point to the IFF code issue being on the ship rather than the jets wouldn't it? I suppose you could have a systemic issue where they made the same mistake on both jets if they were part of the same flight.
What you are describing in the beginning is datalink, which indeed is part of many Semi-Active Radar Homing missiles. But the SARH principle is not about the radar sending guidance signals to the missile. In SARH the radar illuminates the target and the missiles homes on the radar waves relected by the target.
Friendly fire...... isn't friendly.....
That thins is going so damn fast ince its out of there lol. Wow
the military does not need to be saying "uncrewed" to describe autonomous or remotely crewed drones just because woman are upset by the phrase "unmanned". Over in my sector they were called "uninhabited areal vehicles", which is even stupider.
The Standard missile bounced off the water???
What does the plane do once a pilot has ejected, does it go into ditch mode. Would be bad luck if it just carried on gliding into the carrier.
…really great coverage…
Thank you!
Leave it to the states to have the strongest military with likely the most friendly fire incidents 😂
Absolutely phenomenal video Neo…so very interesting..Thank you.. a lot of info here..not to be critical because I certainly don’t know what I am talking compared to your experience and expertise but… does any of your critique compromise military communication protocols in reading that email and decoding the crew’s communications
Thanks D! That email was openly available on X but has since been deleted
@@MaxAfterburnerusa thanks Neo. Blows my mind how detailed and coordinated everything has to be …now we just need to find out why the ship fired to friendly…
I figured IFF had dumped its fill or something.
Thanks
You’re welcome 🫡
Chaff Flare, Chaff Flare, Chaff Flare, Notch radar into being filtered out as ground clutter
Is the water surfcace bounce an intentional target reaquiring on what you described as semiactive radar? (I stress "intentional")(meaning openloop within a closed loop programming of the sensor data hierarchy)
Fine. I subscribed, but only because I crewed Vipers for 10 years. Maybe it's time for a Crew Chief video?
Question, didn't their RWR detect the missile tracking them? did they had it off?
Dumb question, but I haven't heard anyone mention this; the pilot stated hearing the missile fuse/pop, but was there a confirmed hit on their aircraft after ejecting?
Waiting for the DCS recreation…
My daughter flys EA 18s - new worry on the Navy fly mom bingo card.
Thanks for this video.
You're welcome, I hope you enjoyed it!
That shrapnel effect reminds me of the PAC2 on PATRIOT missiles.
Which Patriot is the HTK, PAC3?
@ yeah the PAC3s do that so does THAAD.
Wait for the Ambulance unless it’s from a higher authority
I wonder why the IFF did not do what it was supposed to. I wonder if they were locked on a different target, but the missile went pitbull on the wrong aircraft.
Great overview!🎉👍
Thanks for watching!
0:21 What the heck is going on here? Did the missile intentionally bounce off the water before impact? Does it do this to slow down for some reason?
I couldn't find any answers about with a quick Google search, but I did find a couple of research papers on anti ship missile fuselage design and sea skimming path optimization. I didn't find any answers that could confirm anything, but the papers lead me to believe that most missiles launched with sea skimming fight paths will impact the water due to a large variety of reasons. So it seems that this is just really common and they just design the missiles to be able to survive and handle impacting the water instead of trying to make the sensors, electronics, and control surfaces fast and precise enough to never touch the water. They just try to make it so the loads aren't to high and they don't lose to much speed instead of putting the most expensive, accurate and quick sensors and controls that would be necessary to fly at extremely low altitude without touching the water.
Is this correct?
i rlly want to know as well
@13:24 so this is a code 101 error. The first month of training date time is one of the things learned in programming.
So, who's going to get hell for this mistake?
Still cant get it . Why missle targeted to drone start chasing own plane.
F18- The navy’s newest submarine. Jk. Glad nobody was killed.
What happen to the radar lock warning system inside the jet .
The one that they usually turn off when they're close to fleet since there's countless radar getting pointed at them.
They don't get a radar lock warning till the missile is on top of them anyway. The "radar lock" is the presence of a constant wave radar detection, that doesn't happen till the very end of the engagement with Aegis.
Non aviator, but interested in Aviation, never even considered that the F18 could refuel other planes. Is this a standard config across other military plane types? 🤯
Yeah, when you're operating from a carrier, F18 is what you've gotta use, as the big, land-based tankers can't take off or land from a carrier deck. During my last deployment, I'd say over half of the planes we launched were tankers.
My question is how did it happen not once but twice? I can understand an accident but 2 friendlies? Then again why doesnt a missile have a friendly fire no lock situation in todays tech?
Great video
Glad you enjoyed it
How much time did he have from when he saw the launch until he ejected?
I would guess 20 seconds max
Thanks agen max
You’re welcome!
You are 10 to 15 behind the carrier. You have secured countermeasures by that point. So they are not even an option.
Soo the Hothy was a usa friend in the end of the day 😁 and ther fire was friendly fire 🙃
great video! would they have their RWRs turned off?
They’re about to land on the ship, which is one of the hardest things to do in aviation. Usually RWR and chaff/flare dispensers are OFF when getting ready to land on the boat. RWR going off is nothing but a distraction when trying to concentrate on landing at night, so either it’s turned off or turned way down. Fighters get painted all the time by radar systems, even friendly’s.
Here are my two Cents for this friendly fire incident:
1. Which US Navy pilot (Mark Lethbridge post on X) would just post this information so shortly after a secret mission on X (no way, that I would swallow this thrown bone!)?
2. If it was indeed a SM-2 missile, that was used, than: a. with properly keyed IFF Mode 5 equipment and b.) well trained crew on ship and airplane, this could mostly never happened! Before they launch the SM-2 missile, they must direct interrogate in IFF Mode 5 lethal mode. Not going into too much details, this is the final last request for approval for friend or foe. Only in case of “no reply” (and this is very unlikely to happen in a correct keyed and tested (before take-off) Mode 5 mission, they would start a missile approach.
3. Some people here mention the case of a “zeroized crypto key” incident (e.g. by touching the landing gear on deck (can be prevented by pushing “hold” on instrument panel)- this would immediately cause a big red IFF Warning on instrument displays and an annoying audio tone trough the headphones! Zeroizing the Mode 5 keys could happen trough a few more incidences. But still, in all these cases, the IFF warning (visual and audio) kicks in.
4. Even with zeroized IFF mode 5 keys, the direct IFF Lethal interrogation would cause an even higher warning on the aircrafts/pilots display and he will definitely know, that they are going to launch a missile at him (at least in this mission environment). After he would be aware, he would send (military emergency trough IFF Mode 5 Level 1 and Level 2) or radio a warning (the “downed pilot” did not mention anything about that) and they would than abort the SM-2 approach, even in flight.
5. Do they really waste so much SM-2 (cost per piece is over 2.4 Million USD) for “lousy” Houthi drones (below 20.000 USD)? Or did they fear an incomming Palestine-2 hypersonic missile from Houtis.
6. A well trained radar operator should definitely distinguish between a flying in F-18 tanker during landing approach (much bigger RCS and way smaller Doppler, just to mention two very clear radar characteristics) and an incoming Palestine-2 hypersonic missile.
Just my two cents
My youngest son is Navy. He used to sit in a control room on the ship and he does all the computer stuff for his FA-18 Super Hornets when they fly. He has 17 years in now and is a recruiter in Memphis Tennessee for his last 3 years.
The computer stuff eh?
Computer stuff lol
...ok.
Good for him?
Bro looks like Loki
Do a mig 29 OVT reaction video
WW2: The English fly over the Germans duck, the Germans fly over the English duck, the Americans fly over everyone ducks.
Roger, Roger.
I really want to know how Blunder got his callsign
He fell victim to one of the classic blunders
Hi: I watched the whole video all the way through, and one thought in my mind was wondering if the two ejected pilots were in danger of the missile shrapnel while they were parachuting in the air. On the other hand, if the missile hit the plane directly, maybe it did not emit any shrapnel due to the fact that its explosive power was entirely used in destroying the aircraft. Also, did the second missile explode and emit any shrapnel? I think you mentioned what happened in the beginning, but later when you talked about the pilot's narration of the incident afterwards, you did not mention the emitting of any shrapnel in that narration. I also did not get a clear idea of whether the first missile directly struck the aircraft, and exactly what happened with the second missile. Maybe I wasn't listening closely enough.... Regardless, I think if the two Naval Airmen were in any danger from shrapnel while they were parachuting in the air, you would have mentioned that. Thanks!
Danger of shrapnel would depend on range. How long before they punched out and the missile detonated will dictate how far away from the explosion they were. The pilot only mentioned the pop of the fuse, he didn't mention any shrapnel.
My understanding, from seeing a few vids about this, is that someone on the destroyer got a call and cut the link to the second missile. That aircraft was able to react faster, being further from the ship and already seeing one F-18 hit by a missile, dove for the deck to gain speed, but they probably still would have been hit if the missile was guiding. Without the radar link the second missile stopped guiding and crashed into the water, close enough that the pilot heard and/or saw it splash down.
@overkill1340 Thank You! Your reply was very informative!