US military plane crashes in Mediterranean training 'mishap'

An American military aircraft crashed after suffering a “mishap” during training in the eastern Mediterranean, the US European Command (EUCOM) said Saturday.

It did not specify the type of plane or where it was flying from, but the United States has deployed a carrier strike group to the area as part of efforts to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spiraling into a regional conflict.

“On the evening of November 10, a US military aircraft conducting training operations in the eastern Mediterranean suffered a mishap and went down,” EUCOM said in a statement that did not provide information on the fate of the crew.

“We can definitively say that the aircraft sortie was purely related to training and there are no indications of hostile activity,” the statement said, adding: “The cause of the training incident is currently under investigation.”

Washington rushed military support to Israel and bolstered its forces in the region — including with the USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier and other warships — after the Hamas militant group carried out a shock cross-border attack from Gaza on October 7 that Israeli officials say killed about 1,200 people.

Israel’s military responded with a relentless air, land and naval assault on Gaza that the territory’s health ministry said has left more than 11,000 people dead.