On July 8, 2022, an F-18 Super Hornet was swept out from the flight deck of USS Harry S. Truman
after what Navy officials described as a: (QUOTE) “Sudden spell of intense winds and heavy rain.”
Thirty years had passed since a similar incident occured aboard a US aircraft carrier,
and the strange occurrence sent the almost 60-million-dollar aircraft to the bottom
of the Mediterranean Sea, where the carrier was carrying out daily deterrence sorties.
A month later, incredible footage emerged of an ambitious and complex
operation designed to retrieve the lost warplane from the bottom of the ocean.
The images show dozens of specialists, divers, engineers, and equipment operators
working together in a risky attempt to hook the airframe and pull it out from the seabed.
But after only a few weeks under water, the conditions of the wreck were hard to believe…
A Rare Incident
On July 10, 2022, news outlets around the world
reported a strange occurrence that had taken place on the Mediterranean Sea.
According to a daily Navy statement, an F-18 Super
Hornet warplane had been blown away from the flight deck of USS Harry S. Truman,
an American aircraft carrier conducting NATO deterrence operations in the region.
The incident raised many eyebrows and was considered highly strange and suspicious
by media platforms, as there is usually a strict and well-enforced set of protocols
to ensure American aircraft are always tied with chains while on the carrier's deck.
Even so, the Navy reported that a sudden storm characterized by peculiarly strong
winds had struck the carrier at the moment of the incident, but the service did not
reveal why the F-18 Super Hornet, assigned to Carrier Air Wing 1, had not been secured.
A US combat aircraft had not been blown off the deck of an operational carrier
since the mid-1990s, and the numerous protocols and strictly enforced rules
on the flight deck of a warship had prevented these sorts of accidents for nearly 30 years,
making it even more surprising that the jet fighter was lost.
The Super Hornet was not carrying anyone at the moment of the unfortunate incident,
but one of the ship's sailors was mildly injured during the ordeal, and he had to
receive immediate medical care. However, the Navy soon announced that the seaman was recovering
adequately and that the rest of the warplanes and USS Harry S. Truman remained fully operational.
As global tension keeps rising around the world and new arms
races are taking place between the United States, Russia, and China,
the US Navy has made it a priority to salvage its warplanes lost at sea.
Steven Wills, a naval historian and researcher, described the urgency to recover US warfare
technology: (QUOTE) "It's not just a simple salvage; there could be a race out there. You can
reverse engineer it. ... Historically, some of our friends have been really good about that."
As such, the US quickly prepared an operation to extract the sunken F-18
from the bottom of the ocean before someone beat them to the punch…
A Matter Of National Security
Recovering lost warplanes from the ocean depths is an expensive and complicated affair.
First, a special operation has to be executed just to locate the wreck and evaluate the possibility
of extraction. Then comes the actual retrieval process, which uses a state-of-the-art combination
of automated technology and manned operations, giving way to an entirely new array of risks
and compromises. The process is also costly, often surpassing the original cost of the lost aircraft.
Nevertheless, there are several factors that make it a priority
to pull out a US warplane from the ocean, and the investigation of why
the aircraft fell to the sea often benefits significantly from having access to the wreck.
The results of the inquiry might lead to avoiding incidents in the future, and if the damage to the
warplane was not too severe, the airframe could be repaired and put into service once again.
More importantly, there are security concerns,
as America's rivals have made it abundantly clear that they are willing to steal and
reverse-engineer US technology if they manage to get their hands on it.
In 2001, an EP-3 signals intelligence aircraft
crashed with a Chinese fighter and was forced to land on a Chinese island.
The warplane was not immediately returned to the US, and a tense political standoff ensued.
The plane was eventually returned, but it was Russia who did it, and it was in pieces.
Even if restoring the airframe of a sunken wreck is not possible,
the technology inside the plane might be more than worth it for the United States’ enemies.
Wills explains: (QUOTE) "All that comms stuff and how we encrypt
communications... that's probably higher priority than the airframe or any of the
avionics or weapons or anything else. Just getting a hold of that, I think,
would be a real Intelligence coup for people who aren't friendly to us."
For that reason alone, the US Navy is willing to go to great lengths
and even risk the lives of specialized divers and engineers just to prevent
American technology from falling into the hands of their global rivals.
Into the Depths
The footage the Navy released showing the recovery of the Super Hornet mere weeks
after the July 8, 2022 incident is a rare and unprecedented look at the complexity
and technical prowess required to carry out such a risky and ambitious operation.
First, the exact location and condition of the wreck were established. The jet lay on the seabed
of the Mediterranean Sea at a depth of 9,500 feet. And due to the increased pressure and underwater
conditions at such depths, the operation required the combination of a remotely operated vehicle and
specialized divers to attach the rigging and lift lines that would pull the wreck out of the water.
The operation was overseen by a team of Navy engineers and specialists,
while the diving process was divided into two groups. The leading group,
which would dive all the way down into the seabed, was equipped with special diving
suits and tanks filled with a mixture of gasses explicitly designed for low-depth breathing.
Another team of divers, using regular diving suits and compressed oxygen tanks,
patrolled the area above the wreck, supervising the operations and always
ready to assist their teammates in case something went wrong.
The operation and recovery were executed from the multi-purpose vessel MVP Everest.
Once the divers and the unmanned remote-controlled vehicle were able
to secure the hooks and extraction lines into the warplane's airframe,
the Super Hornet was slowly pulled out from the water and taken onboard the Everest.
The images of the Super Hornet as it was taken out from the sea quickly spread
through news outlets and social media. Many people were surprised to see the condition
of the warplane, which after only a few weeks underwater, seemed devastated and torn apart.
Nevertheless, the operation was considered an undeniable success for the Navy.
The wreck was then taken to a military base in Europe, where it would be carefully studied to aid
in the investigation of the incident that caused the plane to sink into the Mediterranean Sea.
Above all, having recovered the warplane meant that no other military faction in
the world would be able to claim the technology and the military secrets held within its hull...
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