US aircraft carrier loses fighter jet while evading Yemeni fire, with Jon Elmer

Let's now turn to Yemen where the United States has joined uh the war on March 15th to attack Yemen's to allow for Israel to carry out its genocide in Gaza. This is day 47 of the US attack on Yemen uh to defend the genocide. US attacks began on March 15th, shortly after the amenes said that they were going to blockade Israeli shipping and ships that service Israeli ports would be blockaded following Israel's March 2nd announcement that Gaza would be sealed off. It is notable, and I've pointed this out every week, that there are still no reports of even there's been zero attacks, but no reports uh maritime reports of even warnings sent to ships uh in the uh Red Sea. they're either not sailing through uh and these have all been military attacks. The Central Command, the United States uh uh part of the military that oversees the Middle East um talks about 247 operations. Um and the Yemenes have carried out more than 80 operations since the March 15th war began with upwards of 200 missiles and drones targeting Israel itself or the US aircraft carriers. Um and the uh United States Central Command on Sunday said that their forces had struck more than 800 targets in the six weeks killing hundreds they said which matches uh on land reports from the Yemenes that say hundreds have been killed. Um, and like I said, central command says they are quote 24/7 operations and they put the hashtag on their um, messages, Houthies are terrorists, even though the fact that they're targeting um, in this war only military targets who are bombing their country. So, it gives you a good idea of what um, I mean, we all know what the Americans call terrorists. It's anyone who fights um, for liberation against them as a terrorist. um and anyone the Israelis bombing civilians does the word terrorism doesn't have anything to do with civilians um it has to do with attacking military people which is clearly not the def uh definition of terrorism so um anyways the 800 targets is the number of targets it's not the number of munitions dropped many of them have multiple strikes on a single target Abdul Malik al- Houthi uh the leader of Ansar Allah said um that there's been more than 1,500 air strikes strikes since March 15th, 220 uh per week. The strikes are carried out by fighter jets on two aircraft carriers that are in the region um which we can see from this um from this first map. We'll show you the the area uh that we're talking about. The Babel Mandab at the bottom is the choke point going into the Red Sea. In the upper left is the Suez Canal. Um and you can see Israel uh there above Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Um the target uh for the missile and drone attacks from Yemen. Um and the American warships can be seen um there American warships are one of the aircraft carriers is in the north of the Red Sea um almost up at the top more than a thousand kilometers from Yemen. And the other uh carrier that's the USS Truman and the other carrier is the USS Carl Vincent and it's in the Arabian Sea um about uh equidistant uh as the Truman on the other direction staying as far away from Yemeni uh ballistic um and cruise missiles, anti-hship ballistic and cruise missiles and drones. Also yesterday the United Kingdom announced that they had joined the war. They sent four Typhoon uh fighter aircraft to strike Yemen which was uh carried out from their air base in Cyprus. Um and the Pentagon admitted this week confirmed what we reported last week on the electronic that seven uh MQ9 Reaper drones had been down by the Amen since uh March 15th and there's actually an eighth one that was down before March 15th between March 2nd and March 15th um when the blockade began. So that brings the number to 22 that the Americans have uh effectively admitted to all of them. And we know from the signal chat um the US signal chat that was released to a journalist that we know how these MQ9 reapers are integrated into the US strike packages. They're not simply intelligence. Um they are strike they have strike capabilities. And I showed uh you can watch last week's show if you missed it. I covered two of these drones going down. And both of the drones that went down were armed and you could tell by the explosions um that they were armed and they're integrated into these strike packages. Earlier in the month, the New York Times commented from Pentagon official the New York Times reported Pentagon officials comments um that acknowledged that there had been only limited success in destroying the Houthi's vast and largely underground arsenal of missiles, drones, and launchers that are built in Yemen. And if we look at the next map, you can see the positioning from the United States Naval Institute of the two carrier uh strike groups, the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman. Um and the Harry S. Truman has uh its accompanying uh miss guided missile destroyers and cruisers that protect it um there in the North Red Sea. And the Carl Vincson, as I said, is off the coast of Oman. Um and uh it was there was a note sent out by Sentcom that described all of the targeting and the commander the captain of the um the commanding officer uh Captain Chowa Hill who is the commanding officer of the USS Truman. He was previously the commanding officer of the Dwight D. Eisenhower um carrier strike group that was previously fighting the Amenes uh in the Red Sea. So he has a lot of experience with this and the sentcom uh press release was long and detailed but Chow Hill uh the commanding officer of the Truman he pulled out one section of that and it was this section. The strikes have destroyed multiple command and control facilities, air defense system, advanced weapons manufacturing facilities, advanced weapons storage locations. These storage uh facilities housed advanced conventional weapons uh including anti-hship ballistic and cruise missiles, unmanned aerial systems um drones and uncrrewed surface vessels which were employed in Houthi attacks on international shipping. So you can see there from central command that the Ansar Allah and the many armed forces have uh advanced conventional weapons built by themselves uh stored uh in underground bunkers uh in the mountains and you can see why those strikes are not effective like the New York Times uh quoted those Pentagon officers um as having said. So the story this week um if we look at the next slide was from came from the Navy and on Monday they sent out this pretty uh bland press release that simply said the USS Harry S. Truman lost an FA18 Super Hornet assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron 136 and a tow tractor as an aircraft carrier operated in the Red Sea on April 28th. All personnel are accounted for with one soldier injured. Um, the FA18 was actively under tow in the hangar bay when the Move crew lost control of the aircraft and the aircraft and the tow tractor were lost overboard. Sounds like an innocent uh little accident that happened. CNN followed it up. We can see that on the next slide. They have they immediately contacted their Pentagon sources and found out that a US official on the scene said that the uh indicated that the Truman had made a hard turn to evade Houthy fire which contributed to the jet falling overboard. Um another Navy official elsewhere called it an evasive maneuver against an incoming Houthy weapon. The Institute for the Study of War said that the Houthies use a complex strike package combining ballistic and cruise missiles and drones to force the Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier to take evasive action. The pilot was injured when he jumped out of the plane as it was going overboard and landed on the flight deck. This F-18 Super Hornet, $70 million, $67 million um aircraft uh is now at the bottom of the Red Sea. And it will unlikely it will likely remain at the bottom of the Red Sea because what is unlikely is a recovery operation in an active combat zone where these two aircraft carriers there they're uh 10 warships that are designed to protect them and the 160 odd fighter jets and helicopters that are on the two aircraft carriers um seem to be unable to protect these uh aircraft carriers that are moving and taking evasive action. You're not going to have a recovery crew in a static position trying to pull up this jet. I don't foresee that happening. Um when they're unable to defend uh they're unable to defend with all of that uh sophisticated war, hundreds of billions of dollars of war investment. Um they're not that are moving all the time. You're not going to do that when they're frozen. Um, if we look at the next side, you can see the satellite imagery from Monday that caught at least uh what appears to be a hard turn. It's not clear that this is the hard turn um that dropped the uh fighter jet, but it does show here 900 kilometers from Yemen. Um the carrier strike group three with its carrier strike group with three guided missile destroyers um and one cruiser um that accompany. And if we look at the next slide, you can see um that these uh these aircraft carriers are surprisingly uh maneuverable. You can see the list angle that this takes um during this kind of evasive action. And the CNN uh report rightly pointed out that the US Navy carriers are surprisingly maneuverable for their size. powered by two nuclear reactors driving four propeller shafts. These Nimttz class carriers like the Truman can reach speeds of 30 knots and or 35 mph for uh land speed. Um, and so what obviously happened is the missiles and drone package that was sent, the strike package that was sent by Ansar Allah and the Yemeni armed forces got through the guided missile destroyers um to the point where the actual um aircraft carrier had to take evasive action. And we've been saying on this program for many months that an attack hitting one of these aircraft is only a matter of time. This is the most concentrated uh naval warfare the Navy says since World War II. Um it's a 247 operation as Sentcom says. Um and so we're seeing a remarkable detail here. The Yemeni armed forces on Monday said um linked this attack on the Truman that was obviously a near miss and ended up in the second kill of an aircraft because uh we remember back in late December um during uh an Ansar Allah Yemeni armed forces uh drone and missile attack um on the Truman that the tr that the USS Gettysburg the the cruiser shot down one of the F-18s that was on board the Harry Truman. So they've now lost two FA18s during this combat with uh the Yemeni armed forces. The Yemeni armed forces statement on Monday linked this attack on the Truman to two massacres that were civilian massacres that were carried out by the Americans. It says during the past hours, the American enemy committed two massacres. The first in Sana and the second targeting a shelter for immigrants from several African countries in the Sada government in north of Yemen. They killed more than 70 people uh at least in that attack. Those to the two massacres the Yemeni armed forces say resulted in hundreds of killed and wounded. In response to this aggression, the massac and the massacres against civilians, the armed forces targeted the US aircraft carrier Truman and its warships, engaging them in a joint operation carried out by the naval force, air force, and missile force using a number of cruise missiles and ballistic missiles um and drones in the past hour that lasted over uh that lasted over hours. Um the result of the clash and confrontation was that the carrier was forced to retreat and move away from its previous position and head far north in the Red Sea. The many armed forces will continue to target and pursue the aircraft carrier and all enemy warships in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea until the aggression against Yemen stops. And if we look at this next slide, you can see how um the fighter jets are all on the deck. This these are the jets that are bombing Yemen, carrying out these civilian massacres are these jets on the deck. This is from this is the Harry S. Truman what it actually looks like. The next slide you can see what the flight deck is because at any given point half of the fighter jets, half of the 80 fighter jets and helicopters are in the hanger bay underneath uh the flight deck. And you can see them. They just sit right there on the edge. Um you can see it in the next slide as well. Number 27, the flight deck. Um so it suggests that the um Yemenes were able to get uh munitions so close to hitting the uh aircraft carrier that they took uh evasive action to such a degree that they threw off uh one of these planes um when the ship is built to obviously not do that. Um which indicates a significant operation and presumably a near miss. Abdul Malik al-Hoo oh you can see in the next one actually um is the Truman carrier strike group um and its three um number 28 it's um guided missile destroyers and one cruiser the USS uh Gettysburg do we have 28 in any yes here we have them so you can see each of them they're making you can see the Harry S. Truman in the upper left there making the the the hard turn. That might be the turn that's taking them uh away from Yemen rather than um the actual satellite footage of the U because one of the naval commanders said that the evasive maneuver is a zigzag. It's not it's not a big loop like we're seeing there. But that that's a hard turn. We haven't seen that in weeks of satellite imagery uh that we've got. This is from the Sentinel 2 satellite and Abdul Malik al-Huthi said that the American ships now stay more than 1,000 kilometers off the coast of Yemen. And there has been 36 operations against the USS Truman with 130 anti-ship um anti-ship cruise missiles and anti-ship ballistic missiles and drones and presumably um it sounded like in the attack on the Truman also using uh unmanned surface vehicles which are uh drone boats um which might have been what got through uh just speculating but might have been what got through was the drone boat um because there's a a lot of hundreds. We know that they're spending hundreds of millions of dollars um every they're spending it every week on missiles um defending these troop these carriers and the destroyers. Um so this is the uh satellite footage of the USS Carl Vincent. This is the second aircraft carrier. Also has 80 uh fighter jets on it. It has F-35s uh on its deck. And on yesterday, the Yemeni armed forces said that the drone force from the Yemeni armed forces executed a military operation that targeted the American aircraft carrier Vincent and a number of her accompanying warships in the Arabian Sea with several drones. This operations comes 24 hours after the blessed operation that forced the American aircraft carrier Truman to withdraw to the far north of the Red Sea. Also, the Yemeni armed forces on Wednesday announced that their third drone as announced their third drone operation versus Israel targeting Tel Aviv with three YAFA drones and a fourth YAFA drone uh targeted a vital target in occupied Ashkalone. Uh the Yemeni armed forces, they say, affirm to our great people that we will continue to support the Palestinian people until the aggression against Gaza is halted and the siege is lifted. That is their consistent position since October 2023. So that is the resistance report for Yemen and the resistance report for day 573 of this war. 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