Experts say it risks the lives of the pilots. Also, if Hesgeth and other officials are doing it with this particular information, we might be concerned they are doing it with other information.
Yugoslav spies residing near Italian NATO airbases informed the Yugoslav Air Defense HQ about lack of EA-6 Prowler electronic jammer and "Wild Weasel" anti-SAM aircraft launches during the late evening.
Interesting! Unfortunately, Wikipedia offers no citations for that story. (Also, I don't think it says anything about timing, only formation in the sense of what aircraft and capabilities were flying.)
I have an undergraduate understanding of this topic. I can solve for a firing solution against any target, stealth or not, with the details in these texts. Everything is vulnerable when coming into its own—jets’ aren’t at home on carrier decks. America would have been blessed to have a Hegseth in Berlin or Moscow during their falls.
Not sure why you're so skeptical. This was a widely reported incident, it is highly-studied in tactical circles and information on the shootdown is available online and in print. The details they are referring to is likely the flight schedule and formations of the various missions flying out of the airbase. Knowing that a stealth aircraft has no anti-radiation escort means that you can illuminate them with a high-powered radar and not expose yourself as a target. In 1999 it would not be infeasible to use EOTS for a targeting solution too, like the parent comment says all you have to do is "solve" for the constraints.
> How does that apply here?
Because jets don't materialize in midair when they're needed and disappear when their mission is over. They are logistical nightmares to plan for, and part of that chain of logistics concerns keeping your flight plans private. Otherwise, you risk pilot lives so your enemy can use 1950s tactics against you. Air combat isn't the Cold War anymore, shootdowns like the one in 1999 emphasize how important secrecy is in contested airspace.
You’re confusing two commenters, one who brought up Serbia, the other—me—speaking to the facts and circumstance relevant to this incident.
The details in Hegseth’s messages would allow an actor like the Houthis to take out our jets on takeoff and landing. We tightly guard those details because they’re highly actionable tactical intel. The fact that a drunk TV influencer didn’t get that isn’t surprising.
I think you're the confused one - I started this subthread by saying Hesgeth's leaks were dangerous, yet somehow you jump into a debate about Serbia - the Wikipedia articles you cited were about Serbia - and argue that same point about Hesgeth as if I disagreed.
You also wrote explicitly about Serbia, and implicitly if you look at the context: we were talking about Serbia and you jumped in to talk about takeoff/landing; it's reasonable to read that as addressing the same topic.
I didn't know you meant takeoff/landing for the Yemen operations until now.
> didn't shoot down the F-117 as it landed or took off, but in the air over Serbia
In Serbia they had a full mission profile. The commonality is knowing where something will be when. The difference between the situations is hitting something low, slow and above a relatively-uniform body like the ocean is a lot easier than doing so when it’s high and fast.
Perhaps you have independent knowledge of the episode but the Wikipedia articles you cite only say the Serbs knew that the flights departed in the evening and that the mission wouldn't have its jamming and suppression support aircraft.
Anyway, I think we agree that the info Hesgeth reportedly shared would be a danger to pilots and missions if the enemy has any anti-aircraft capability.
Another way of looking at it was that hubris was the threat both times.
The number innocent US citizens in Yemen dead due to US strikes exceeds US pilots killed. So the US dead lives calculus is complicated by the fact this is also Americans (government) killing Americans.
I don't know it's zero sum, but if the drone strike on a Yemen domiciled US citizen would have been anticipated I think that citizen would not have waited around to be blown up, to the extent a child has such agency.
