Kochi: A US fighter jet and a helicopter crashed into the disputed South China Sea within 30 minutes of each other taking off from aircraft carrier USS Nimitz on Sunday afternoon, media reports quoting US Navy’s Pacific Fleet, said.
The crew members of MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter and F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter were rescued.
The F/A-18 is at least the fourth of the $60 million fighter jets the Navy has lost this year. No sailors were killed in any of those mishaps on which investigation reports are yet to be published.
The USS Nimitz, one of the largest warships in the world, is likely to be decommissioned next year.
President Donald Trump, who is touring Asia, is scheduled to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week for talks on trade.
China claims “sovereignty” over almost all of the South China Sea, and most of the islands and sandbars within it, even as an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines in a landmark maritime dispute in 2016.
The tribunal concluded that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea.
The Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan claims right over it.
Even as the US has not made claims to the South China Sea, it says the waters are crucial to its national interest of guaranteeing freedom of the seas worldwide.
The US Navy regularly conducts freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) in the South China Sea.
US fighter jet, copter crash near China
