Direct proof of use
The MH-60R Seahawk is directly documented in the 2023 Red Sea Crisis through reporting on U.S. Navy leadership remarks at the Surface Navy Association symposium in January 2025. The War Zone reported that Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. James Kilby said a Navy helicopter had shot down a UAV in the Red Sea campaign, and that Vice Adm. Daniel Cheever, commander of Naval Air Forces, confirmed the engagement involved a Seahawk attached to the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group.
The same reporting identified the aircraft as an MH-60R Romeo Seahawk and described the target as a Houthi drone. Follow-on aviation reporting repeated the MH-60R identification and noted that U.S. officials did not disclose the drone type or the weapon used, beyond describing the method as unconventional.
Sources: TWZ MH-60R Drone Shootdown, The Aviationist MH-60R Drone Shootdown, Zona Militar MH-60R Drone Shootdown
Timeline
The Red Sea Crisis began for this catalog on October 19, 2023, after Houthi missile and UAV attacks brought U.S. naval air-defense activity into the Red Sea. Operation Prosperity Guardian was announced on December 18, 2023, to address Houthi attacks in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
On December 31, 2023, U.S. Central Command said Navy helicopters from USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and USS Gravely responded to a Maersk Hangzhou distress call and returned fire after Houthi small boats fired on them. That official statement documents Navy helicopter combat use in the same campaign, but it does not identify the helicopter variant. The later MH-60R-specific drone shootdown was reported in January 2025 and was described as having occurred about a month before the symposium remarks.
Sources: Operation Prosperity Guardian Statement, CENTCOM Small Boats Statement, TWZ MH-60R Drone Shootdown
Narrative
In the Red Sea campaign, the documented MH-60R role was shipboard force protection and counter-UAV defense from a U.S. carrier strike group. The available sources place the aircraft inside a naval operating environment shaped by Houthi drones, missiles, and small boats threatening merchant vessels and coalition warships around the southern Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and Gulf of Aden.
The public record supports MH-60R use against at least one Houthi UAV, but it does not publicly identify the target model, the exact date, the squadron, or the weapon fired. The December 31, 2023 small-boat engagement remains useful campaign context for Seahawk-family helicopter operations because CENTCOM documented U.S. Navy helicopters returning fire and sinking three Houthi boats after being attacked; however, that official statement does not establish an MH-60R variant for that incident.
Sources: TWZ MH-60R Drone Shootdown, The Aviationist MH-60R Drone Shootdown, CENTCOM Small Boats Statement
