There's further embarrassment for the White House, as the US Navy has been accused of burning money after around $110 million of military vehicles were lost during two back-to-back crashes that happened just 30 minutes apart.
2025 has been particularly bad for aviation disasters, and starting with January's Potomac River collision that lost 67 people their lives, we saw a fiery fighter jet crash at Alaska's Eielson Air Force Base, a Delta plane land upside down in Toronto, and heard all about the sole survivor of the deadly Air India Flight AI171.
It comes amid complaints that the Trump administration has been slashing jobs across the industry, and Elon Musk fought with the Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy.
Now, President Donald Trump has spoken out after an MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter and an F/A-18F Super Hornet were lost in the South China Sea within a half-hour of each other. As reported by TMZ, the two aircraft were assigned to the USS Nimitz supercarrier and crashed in a pair of unrelated incidents.
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Thankfully, all members of the Sea Hawk and Super Hornet crews were rescued without fatality.
Discussing the incident with reports while flying on Air Force One, the POTUS explained: "They’re gonna let me know pretty soon. I think they should be able to find out. It could be bad fuel. I mean, it’s possible it’s bad fuel. Very unusual that that would happen."
Responding to the theory that bad actors were responsible for $110 million of US Navy equipment plummeting into the ocean, Trump reiterated his fuel theory and concluded: "I don’t think so."
Speaking to The War Zone, a US Navy official then added: "We don’t believe it was anything nefarious." US Pacific Fleet (PACFLEET) oversees naval operations in the area, but referred TMZ to the White House press office while refusing to comment on the President's musings.
In terms of what happened, PACFLEET confirmed the first incident happened when the Sea Hawk "went down in the waters of the South China Sea" at 2:45 PM local time.
The helicopter boasts a price tag of around $40 million and was said to be "conducting routine operations" from the USS Nimitz. Assigned to the “Battle Cats” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 73 (HSM-73), the PACFLEET statement said: "Search and rescue assets assigned to Carrier Strike Group 11 safely recovered all three crew members.'
Just 30 minutes later, a F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter that was assigned to the "Fighting Redcocks" of Strike Fighter Squadron 22 (VFA-22) also went down while similarly conducting routine operations from the Nimitz.
Considering the Super Hornet is said to cost up to $73 million, it's a lot of money to sink to the bottom of the ocean in just half an hour. There was a small silver lining, with PACFLEET stating: “Both crew members successfully ejected and were also safely recovered by search and rescue assets assigned to Carrier Strike Group 11.
"All personnel involved are safe and in stable condition. The cause of both incidents is currently under investigation."
The outlet notes that fuel contaminated with water or foreign substances can be a major problem for supercarriers, with fuel checks being a common part of many investigations.
Still with investigations sometimes taking months to conclude, we might not be getting answers for a while.