US military aircraft crashes in Mediterranean
An unspecified American military aircraft has crashed in the eastern Mediterranean, US European Command announced on Saturday. Washington has recently deployed two aircraft carrier groups to the region as a deterrence measure amid the Israeli war in Gaza.
The aircraft was conducting a training flight on Friday evening when it “suffered a mishap and went down,” EUCOM said in a brief statement. The Pentagon did not provide any additional information about the type of aircraft, how many people were aboard, or whether the incident took place over land or sea.
“However, we can definitively say that the aircraft sortie was purely related to training and there are no indications of hostile activity,” EUCOM added. “Out of respect for the families affected, we will not release further information on the personnel involved at this time.”
In addition to several airbases in the region, the US military also has the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group operating in the eastern Mediterranean. The second strike group, headed by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, was also in the area recently, but has since passed through the Suez Canal to the Middle East to better “deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war following Hamas's attack on Israel.”
Last year, an F-18 Super Hornet aboard the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier “blew overboard” due to “unexpected heavy weather” during a replenishment mission in the Mediterranean. The jet sank thousands of meters beneath the sea, but was recovered a month later.
