Naval Flight Mishaps On The Rise

Monday, November 08, 2021 at 07:47 PM ET

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An F/A-18F Super Hornet flies over the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. USS Dwight D. Eisenhower

Key Takeaways:

Naval Class-A flight and aviation mishaps have significantly increased, more than doubling from FY2019 to FY2021, with 12 flight mishaps and 16 overall aviation mishaps reported in the latter year.
While the raw number of Class-A mishaps has risen, the overall mishap rate has remained stable compared to the 10-year average, partly due to the escalating cost of aircraft components causing more incidents to meet the $2.5 million damage threshold for Class-A classification.
These Class-A incidents, which include crashes, ejections, and fatalities (such as five personnel lost at sea in one event), are under investigation by the Naval Safety Center to implement corrective actions and improve safety protocols.

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Naval flight mishaps are on the rise, more than double what they were two years ago, according to the Naval Safety Center (NSC).

So far this year, there have been a dozen Class-A flight mishaps of crewed aircraft, up from five reported in fiscal 2019, according to the most recent batch of NSC data. In that same time period, Class-A aviation mishaps have risen to 16 in FY2021, up from eight in fiscal 2019.