The American Eisenhower aircraft carrier was targeted by Yemen for a second time in the last 24 hours, at the end of August.
This isn’t correct. According to live maritime tracking, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier is off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia in the US.
A false claim is being shared online that an American aircraft carrier has been targeted twice in 24 hours from Yemen at the end of August.
Posts making the claim have been circulating on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook on 28 August, with a caption saying: “BREAKING.
“The American Eisenhower aircraft carrier was targeted by #Yemen for second time in the last 24 hours [sic].”
It comes amid ongoing attacks on shipping vessels sailing through the Red Sea, and the waters along the Yemen coast, by Houthi rebels in Yemen, which have been taking place since November 2023 in response to the Israel-Gaza conflict.
However, the claim that the ‘Eisenhower aircraft carrier’ was attacked in August from Yemen is not true.
According to US officials, a similar claim that the ship had been attacked by Houthi forces in June was also false.
According to its Facebook page, the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower returned to its naval station in Norfolk, Virginia, on 14 July.
According to the US Naval Institute tracker, and the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, it carried out an ordnance transfer (where missiles are passed to other ships) in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia on 24 August.
Marine tracking online, which uses an automatic identification system that uses transceivers on ships and is used by vessel traffic services, also records that the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower was last recorded at Norfolk naval station on 29 August (after the posts on social media were made).
The aircraft carrier had been part of a ‘strike group’ which engaged in combat operations in the Middle East region, including strikes on Houthi forces in Yemen, from November 2023 to June 2024.
But the entire Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group returned from its nine month deployment on 14 July this year.
We have contacted the US Department of Defense about the claims, and will update this article if we receive a response.
Full Fact has seen a number of images and videos circulating on social media which misleadingly claim to show events in the Red Sea and Yemen. It’s important to consider whether something shows what it claims to before sharing it—you can read more about this in our guide to fact checking misleading videos relating to the Israel-Gaza conflict.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier has not been struck from Yemen, and at the time of writing it is off the coast of the USA.
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