It feels like a scene out of the movie “Top Gun.” But the actions of one Navy fighter pilot are anything buy Hollywood.
In fact, it just made history.
According to a CBS News report, an aviator for the United States Navy recently became the first American woman ever to score a victory in air-to-air combat, the service said.
The fighter pilot, who was not identified, earned the historic distinction after shooting down a Houthi drone, one of dozens of attack drones launched by the Yemen-based rebel group that have targeted civilian merchant ships in the Red Sea and surrounding waters, according to the Navy. Houthis say the attacks are a direct response to the devastation in Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
According to the report, the pilot was flying an F/A-18 Super Hornet during a combat deployment on the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower that lasted nine months. She was among a group of men and women belonging to Strike Fighter Squadron 32, nicknamed the “Flying Swordsmen.”
“During one mission, VFA-32 became home to the first American female pilot to engage and kill an air-to-air contact,” the Navy said.
It wasn’t clear exactly when the pilot shot down the drone, but the Navy said that throughout their deployment her squadron fired more than 20 air-to-air missiles against one-way Houthi attack drones targeting merchant vessels in the Red Sea and Bab-al-Mandeb Strait, which is a narrow waterway between Yemen and the horn of Africa.
Strike Fighter Squadron 32 finished deployment earlier this month and returned to the Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach on July 14, the Navy said, calling their service “historic.”
According to the Navy, the squadron flew more than 3,000 combat hours and completed more than 1,500 combat missions over the course of their deployment. Their deployment served operations Inherent Resolve and Prosperity Guardian, the names for the U.S. military’s campaigns against the Islamic State and the Houthi-led attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, respectively. In addition to confronting attack drones in and around the Red Sea, they also carried out two strikes in areas of Yemen under Houthi control.