Washington, DC – December 10, 2025 – Two U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets carried out a high-profile flight over the Gulf of Venezuela on Tuesday, marking the closest publicly documented closest approach of American combat aircraft to Venezuelan territory since the Trump administration began its aggressive campaign against the Maduro regime.
The jets, operating from the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford currently deployed in the southern Caribbean, were tracked in real time by thousands of users on Flightradar24. For roughly 35 minutes around midday local time, the aircraft — using call signs RHINO11 and RHINO12 — flew repeated racetrack patterns in international airspace less than 100 nautical miles from Venezuela’s northwestern coast, well within visual range of the mainland on a clear day.
A senior U.S. defense official described the mission as a “routine training and presence operation” designed to demonstrate the reach and readiness of carrier-based airpower. The official stressed that the jets remained at all times in international airspace and that no Venezuelan aircraft attempted an intercept, despite Venezuelan Su-30 fighters being scrambled from La Orchila Island.
The flight is the latest and most provocative in a series of U.S. military demonstrations that have intensified since President Trump’s return to office in January 2025. Previous operations included long-range patrols by B-1B Lancer and B-52 Stratofortress bombers along Venezuela’s northern coastline, but Tuesday’s Super Hornet mission brought U.S. tactical fighters significantly closer than any prior sortie.
The escalation follows months of U.S. naval and air activity framed by the White House as a counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism campaign. Since September, American forces have conducted at least 22 kinetic strikes on suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, resulting in the destruction of 23 boats and the deaths of 87 individuals identified by the Pentagon as members of the Venezuelan-linked Tren de Aragua gang and the so-called Cartel de los Soles.
Venezuelan authorities immediately denounced the overflight as a “flagrant violation of sovereignty” and an act of “imperial aggression.” President Nicolás Maduro addressed a rally in Caracas hours later, declaring that “the skies of the homeland are sacred” and vowing that any future incursion would be met with force. State television broadcast footage of Venezuelan air force jets taking off in response, though no engagement took place.
Military analysts note that while Venezuela possesses a nominally capable air-defense network — including Russian-made Su-30MK2 fighters, S-300VM surface-to-air missile systems, and coastal radar installations — chronic shortages of spare parts, fuel, and trained personnel have severely degraded operational readiness. Multiple experts, including retired U.S. Navy officers and former Venezuelan military officials now in exile, have assessed that the country’s integrated air-defense system could be suppressed or destroyed within the opening 48 hours of a determined U.S. campaign.
The Gulf of Venezuela operation occurred against the backdrop of a near-total collapse of commercial aviation links with the country. In late November, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a 90-day advisory strongly discouraging flight operations in Venezuelan airspace, citing GNSS jamming, unpredictable military activity, and deteriorating security conditions. Within days, every major international carrier still serving Caracas — including Iberia, TAP Portugal, Avianca, LATAM, Turkish Airlines, and Copa Airlines — suspended service indefinitely, effectively isolating Venezuela by air.
The Trump administration has repeatedly described the military buildup as necessary to dismantle what it calls a “narco-terrorist state” directly responsible for a significant portion of fentanyl and cocaine entering the United States. Administration officials have doubled the reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest to $50 million and have not ruled out ground operations.
Critics, including human rights organizations and several Latin American governments, have condemned the maritime strikes as extrajudicial killings and warned that further escalation risks a wider regional conflict or humanitarian catastrophe. Families of some of those killed in the boat interdictions — many of them fishermen from Trinidad, Colombia, and Venezuela itself — insist the deceased were innocent and have filed lawsuits against the U.S. government.
As the USS Gerald R. Ford and its escorting destroyer squadron remain on station just over the horizon from Venezuelan waters, Tuesday’s fighter-jet mission has dramatically raised the stakes in what is now the most serious U.S.–Venezuela confrontation since the 2019 recognition crisis. With no off-ramp currently in sight, observers across the hemisphere are watching to see whether the Super Hornets’ flight was a final warning — or the opening move in a far larger operation.
