US Air Force Nearly Lost An F-35 Jet To Yemen’s Houthis: Report – News18

Last Updated:May 19, 2025, 18:30 is

The Houthis also released a footage showing their successful targetting of US drones, and at least one clip showed a US F-35 maneuvering aggressively to evade a missile.

In a sobering test of US air dominance, Yemen’s Houthi rebels – armed with a patchwork of Soviet-era missiles, Iranian technology, and battlefield improvisation – managed to throw a wrench into the operations of the world’s most advanced fighter jets. A recent close encounter over Yemen, where a US F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was nearly struck by a surface-to-air missile, is now raising alarm in defence circles about the vulnerability of America’s most prized military assets.

The incident, first reported by The New York Timesoccurred during Operation Rough Rider, a US-led campaign against Houthi targets in Yemen. According to the report, the fifth-generation stealth jet was forced to take evasive maneuvers after a Houthi SAM came dangerously close to impact. The F-35, regarded as the crown jewel of the US Air Force’s fighter fleet, was nearly downed by a group that US has long dismissed as a low-tech insurgency.

The implications are far-reaching. As The National Interest noted, “If the backwards rebel group in Yemen can disrupt US air operations so easily, how can America conduct effective air operations against a more sophisticated adversary?” It is a question that now echoes through the corridors of the Pentagon.

Military analyst Gregory Brew, writing on X (formerly Twitter), noted that “several American F-16s and an F-35 fighter jet were nearly struck by Houthi air defences, making real the possibility of American casualties.” He added that the rebels had already succeeded in shooting down seven American MQ-9 Reaper drones, each valued at around $30 million. These losses, Brew warns, are hampering CENTCOM’s ability to monitor and strike Houthi positions effectively.

Reports from The War Zone confirmed that the Houthis’ air defence capabilities, while primitive by modern standards, were not to be underestimated. Their arsenal included jury-rigged Soviet-designed R-73 and R-27 air-to-air missiles, locally rebranded as Thaqib-1 and Thaqib-2, fitted with passive infrared guidance systems. These missiles provide little or no warning to incoming aircraft, especially stealth models like the F-35 that rely on low radar cross-sections to remain undetected.

The Houthis also released a footage showing their successful targetting of US drones, and at least one clip showed a US F-35 maneuvering aggressively to evade what officials believe was an infrared-guided missile.

According to The War ZoneHouthi surface-to-air systems are “rudimentary but highly mobile”, making them unpredictable and difficult to suppress. Their non-traditional setup, often combining commercial infrared sensors and modified air-to-air missiles, enables them to stay hidden until it’s too late. Many systems are passive, meaning they emit no detectable signals that could alert pilots to their presence, a major tactical advantage in modern air combat.

Crucially, the Houthis are not entirely dependent on improvised tech. With backing from Iran, they’ve acquired more modern SAM platforms including the Barq-1 and Barq-2 systems, which are reportedly based on the Iranian Taer missile family. These missiles, in turn, trace their lineage to Cold War-era Soviet systems such as the SA-6 and SA-11. While their exact specifications remain murky, the Houthis claim the Barq-1 and Barq-2 have ranges of 31 and 44 miles, respectively, and are capable of engaging targets flying as high as 65,000 feet.

The War Zone reported that these systems were often launched from wheeled platforms with integrated fire-control radars, electro-optical tracking, and infrared cameras for target acquisition, giving them surprising efficacy against even the most advanced aircraft.

The confrontation over Yemen is more than a tactical episode; it raises profound strategic concerns. The near-miss involving an F-35 calls into question the jet’s survivability in contested airspace. If a stealth fighter equipped with the latest countermeasures can be forced into evasive action by modified Soviet missiles, what does that say about its prospects in a showdown with a near-peer adversary armed with cutting-edge air defence systems?

As The National Interest argued, “If the F-35, a fifth-generation stealth fighter with an ultra-low radar cross section (RCS), is vulnerable to Cold War-era SAM defenses, how will the F-35 (or the rest of the US fleet) fare against modern air defence systems?”

The larger takeaway is that superiority in cost and complexity does not guarantee superiority in performance. The US Air Force’s high-tech arsenal, once thought to provide unchallengeable air dominance, is now being seriously tested by an insurgent force using decades-old technology and improvised weapons.

The result is a wake-up call not only for ongoing US operations in the Middle East but also for future conflicts where adversaries may combine low-cost innovations with asymmetric tactics to challenge even the most advanced military powers.

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