Trump immediately stating that it was “bad fuel”, makes me think he is just downplaying the brute force show of technology by China.
I would be concerned thats its a warning from china, using a special energy weapon, to throw off all three flying computers in these craft, verify 3 computers voting like most spacecraft have
ChatGPT said:
Your concern that this could be a deliberate “energy-weapon” or electromagnetic disruption by South China Sea adversary is interesting — but from what is publicly known about the two aircraft (a MH‑60R Seahawk helicopter and a F/A‑18F Super Hornet jet) and their flight-control/avionics design, here’s how the technical situation stacks up — what we do know, what we don’t know, and how plausible your theory is in light of the public record.
✅ What we do know about their flight-control / computer redundancy
For the F/A-18F Super Hornet
- The Super Hornet uses a fly-by-wire (FBW) flight control system. According to general sources: a digital fly-by-wire system “virtually all … incorporate either redundant computers (triplex, quadruplex etc.) to prevent loss of signals in the case of failure.” Wikipedia+1
- A more specific release: BAE Systems was selected by Boeing to upgrade the “flight control computers (FCCs) … for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet” with “quad-redundant FBW flight control systems (FCS)” noted. PR Newswire+1
- Therefore, it is publicly acknowledged that the Super Hornet’s flight control system has at least quad-redundancy in its FBW architecture.
- Also: its “mission computers” or “advanced mission computers” (AMCs) handle sensor/mission processing, but these are separate from the flight control computers. (See for example the AMC for the Super Hornet) General Dynamics Mission Systems
For the MH-60R Seahawk
- The MH-60R is the U.S. Navy’s multi-mission maritime helicopter. U.S. Navy+1
- We have documents showing upgrades to its “Mission Computer / Flight Management Computer (MC/FMC)” modules: e.g., Curtiss‑Wright Corporation awarded a contract by Lockheed Martin to upgrade the MH-60R/S MC/FMC to improve resilience for “new battlefield threats / cyber-attacks”. curtisswright.com+1
- However, I did not locate publicly detailed information (in my quick scan) about the exact voting logic (triplex vs quadruplex vs other) inside the MH-60R’s flight-control computers.
⚠️ What we don’t know / what’s uncertain
- We do not have access in public records (at least easily found) to a full breakdown of the aircraft’s voting logic “3 computers voting” (i.e., triple redundancy) versus “4 computers” (quad redundancy) especially for the MH-60R.
- We aren’t sure how the MH-60R’s flight control computers are structured (how many independent channels, how voting logic is implemented). The public references tend to be about mission/management computers rather than detailed flight-control redundancy.
- We don’t have any authoritative public source indicating that the two crashes were caused by electromagnetic weaponry (directed-energy), hacking, or any malicious interference. Investigations are ongoing, per the news.
- The “30 minutes apart” coincidence does raise anomaly potential, but operationally there could be other explanations (mechanical, environmental, maintenance, fuel, human error) that may be more mundane.
🤔 How plausible is the “energy weapon / computer voting gone bad” scenario?
Let’s assess from a systems-engineering viewpoint:
- High level of redundancy: Both aircraft use advanced redundant systems (quad-redundant in Super Hornet’s case) for flight control. That means any one computer failing (or one channel) should not lead to catastrophic loss of control on its own — the system is designed to tolerate such failures.
- Voting logic: In a typical “triplex voting” system, three computers compute independently; the system compares results and if one deviates, it’s excluded, and the majority (2 of 3) remain. In “quadruplex” systems, there may be four independent channels or more, and some logic to exclude outliers. The BAE article for the F/A-18E/F references “quad-redundant FBW flight control systems” explicitly. PR Newswire+1
- Directed energy / electromagnetic interference (EMI) as attack vector: For an adversary to use a special energy weapon or EMI to cause both aircraft to lose multiple computers or channels, the attacker would need to:
- Be physically close enough or have sufficient energy projection to affect the aircraft’s flight control computers/actuators (which are in hardened military systems and likely shielded).
- Overcome the redundant channels (i.e., cause at least 2 or more channels to fail or produce invalid output) such that the system cannot maintain control.
- Do it in such a way that two different aircraft (with different platforms, although same carrier group) crashed within 30 minutes. That would imply a very coordinated, highly capable attack.
- Environmental / maintenance / mechanical factors: Meanwhile, common-cause failures (e.g., fuel contamination, maintenance lapses, software/hardware obsolescence, simultaneous system fault) may also explain two mishaps in a short time period, especially on a carrier where operations are intense.
- Probability and evidence: While the possibility cannot be fully dismissed given the opaque nature of military incident investigations, there is no public evidence so far to support a “directed-energy weapon” cause. Investigations normally look first at mechanical/human/maintenance/fuel causes.
🔍 My reasoned judgment based on available info
Given what we know:
- It is technically plausible that the aircraft have multi-channel redundant flight control computers (confirmed in the Super Hornet case).
- It is less likely (based purely on publicly-available evidence) that a directed-energy attack caused both crashes — mainly because the complexity of such an attack is very high, and there is no firm public indicator.
- It remains wise to keep this scenario as one of the hypotheses, not ruled out, but also not currently the most probable without further data.
- The fact that two aircraft were lost within ~30 minutes is unusual, and merits special investigation — including both standard causes (maintenance, fuel, mechanical) and less common ones (electromagnetic interference, software/hardware common mode failure) — especially since carrier-based operations involve specific stresses.
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how likely is this to be bad fuel, do they even use the exact same fuel
ChatGPT said:
Good questions — let’s unpack what we do know about fuel use in the F/A‑18F Super Hornet and the MH‑60R Seahawk, and assess how plausible a “bad-fuel” scenario is in this case.
✅ What we know about fuel types and compatibility
- Fuel type for carrier-based US Navy aircraft
- The US Navy typically uses the jet fuel specification called JP‑5 for carrier-based fixed-wing aircraft. (JP-5 has a high flash point (~60 °C) and is therefore safer for shipboard operations). Wikipedia+1
- The F/A-18 Super Hornet article notes that it “most commonly uses JP-5 jet fuel.” Wikipedia+1
- For helicopters like the MH-60 series, aircraft also use jet fuel (turbine engines) with appropriate specifications; while I found fewer explicit statements for MH-60R use of JP-5 specifically, given that it is a US Navy ship-borne helicopter the expectation is that it uses the same shipboard aviation fuel type.
- Fuel-system testing and alternative fuels
- The MH-60S (a sibling variant of MH-60R) was flown in a test using a 50/50 bio-fuel blend with conventional naval jet fuel. Naval Air Systems Command
- For the F/A-18E/F & EA-18G program, alternative fuels (50/50 blends of synthetic or bio-feedstock) were qualified and the JP-5 specification was revised to allow such blends. DENIX+1
- Conclusion on “do they use the exact same fuel?”
- Yes, very likely: both aircraft (the MH-60R helicopter and the F/A-18F jet) operating from a US Navy carrier should be using the same core shipboard jet aviation fuel (JP-5) or equivalent specification.
- This means a single contaminated fuel batch (or poorly managed fuel supply) could plausibly affect multiple aircraft onboard or servicing from same source.
⚠️ How likely is “bad fuel” as a cause in this incident?
Given the above, here are factors that make “bad fuel” a possible cause — and also reasons why it may or may not be the leading suspect.
Supporting factors:
- If both aircraft used the same batch or source of fuel (on the same carrier ship), contamination or adulteration could be common-mode failure affecting multiple types of aircraft.
- The coincidence of two aircraft from the same carrier in roughly the same timeframe increases plausibility of a shared logistic/maintenance issue (fuel, servicing, environment) rather than completely independent failures.
- In carrier operations, fuel storage, distribution, bunkering operations are highly complex; possibility exists of cross-contamination, water ingress, microbial growth in fuel, incorrect additive mixing, or variable quality especially in deployed operations.
Mitigating factors / reasons to be cautious:
- Aircraft fuel systems (especially military) have multiple checks, filtration, quality assurance, and fuel supply chain standards. A fuel contamination event large enough to crash multiple aircraft would likely trigger immediate emergency flags earlier.
- A fuel fault typically causes degraded performance (engine power loss, flame-out, surging) rather than immediate catastrophic control failure (though depending on scenario it could lead to crash). The articles say “crash into the sea” but don’t provide details such as engine failure, flame-out, loss of flight control — so we don’t yet know if fuel fault matches the failure mode.
- A helicopter and a fighter jet have different flight profiles, usage, loads, systems so a single fuel defect would have to be severe or affect multiple subsystems to crash both aircraft nearly simultaneously.
- The investigation is ongoing, and until detailed incident data (fuel samples, engine data, maintenance logs) are released, fuel remains a hypothesis but not confirmed.
🔍 My estimate of probability
Putting it all together: given shared fuel type and the carrier context, I’d assign a moderate probability to fuel being a contributing factor (say 30-40% likelihood), depending on other facts (fuel age, supply chain logs, sample analyses).
However, I’d still consider other causes (mechanical failure, maintenance error, environment/weather, simultaneous software/hardware fault, or even deliberate interference) equally or more plausible unless fuel evidence emerges.
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