What It's Like To Land On An Aircraft Carrier? The US Navy's Hardest Landing Explained

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Landing on an aircraft carrier has always been challenging. In the very beginning, during the 1910s, aircraft would be launched off capital warships, but then ditch into the sea on return before being recovered. Over the years, many aircraft have been lost during carrier operations.

The most recent example occurred in late September 2026, only weeks ago as of the time of writing. In that mishap, the two aviators ejected as they landed their two-seat EA-18G Growler on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower off the coast of Virginia.

There are multiple ways to take off and land on an aircraft carrier. The Royal Navy's aircraft carriers use the ski-jump method, and their F-35B fighter jets have the ability to land vertically. However, this article will limit itself to discussing landing on conventional carriers, like the US Navy supercarriers (not the amphibious assault ships) and their aircraft like the F-35C and F/A-18 Super Hornet.

The Development Of Aircraft Carrier Operations

In November 1910, the first aircraft was flown off an 83-foot (25 meter) wooden platform that had been attached to the bow of the USS Birmingham scout cruiser, while the vessel was stationary. The first US Navy night landing was accomplished in April 2025 on the early USS Langley (CV-1), and night carrier landing qualifications became mandatory in 1929.

It can also be noted that during this time, the US Navy experimented with flying aircraft carriers like the Akron-class airships. It wasn't until 1944 that dedicated night-flying and around-the-clock operations were scaled up. The USS Independence (CVL-22) became the US Navy's first specialized night carrier with a qualified night air group.

It is impossible to list all the many innovations that were developed by the Royal Navy and US Navy, among others, in developing modern carriers. However, some important innovations were catapults, the modification of aircraft themselves, the carrier island, the angled flight deck, and the emergence of jet-powered aircraft.

Jet-powered aircraft are much more difficult as they make the aircraft faster, heavier, thirstier, and more demanding overall. Compared with their piston-engine counterparts, they approach the carrier much faster, bringing much more kinetic energy that needs to be managed. They have less time to correct for errors and have a reduced power-response margin. They are a big part of the reason why carriers got much larger after the Second World War.

Carrier-Based Aircraft Have Specific Modifications

Landing Air Force aircraft on the runway is often described as a gentle touch, while landing aircraft on aircraft carriers is frequently described as a controlled crash. Both landing and taking off induce a large amount of strain on aircraft airframes and landing gear, requiring them to be specially reinforced.

Carrier aircraft are much more than aircraft with an arresting hook bolted on. Their airframes are reinforced around their landing-gear attachment point, wing roots, fuselage frames, engine mounts, arresting-hook attachment structure, and catapult attachment points.

The carrier-based F-35C has substantially larger wings and a reinforced internal structure compared with its land-based F-35A counterpart. The Navy has a program of record to purchase a total of 273 F-35Cs, not including the number the Marine Corps is purchasing. Carrier aircraft essentially need to slam onto a moving runway.

However, aircraft modification is not all about structural reinforcement for extra stresses. To conserve valuable space on the flight deck and in the hangar, wings typically need to fold. The wings of the EA-18G Growler, F/A-18 Super Hornet, and F-35C all fold. Being exposed to salty air also means that the aircraft need to be corrosion-resistant. All of this means that carrier-based aircraft come with a considerable weight penalty.

Snagging The Arresting Wire

Modern US aircraft carriers stop landing aircraft through the arresting system. The aircraft has a hook that it uses to snag steel wires stretched across the flight deck. These are designed to absorb the aircraft's kinetic energy, bringing it to a stop in around 300 feet (90 meters).

If the aircraft's hook fails to snag the wires, the pilot takes off for another round, but time is so tight that the pilot throttles down at the last second just in case. The angled deck allows aircraft to avoid hitting other aircraft or the control tower in a mishap and provides space to take off for another try if needed.

An F/A-18E Super Hornet landing with a mass of 44,100 lbs (20,000 kg) at a ground speed of 130 knots means there is around 45 megajoules of kinetic energy. If the aircraft stops in 300 feet (90 meters), then the pilot will experience around 2.6 Gs (gravitational acceleration) averaged across that stopping distance.

The actual values depend on variables (air speed and aircraft weight). Each US carrier is fitted with four arresting wires, and all the aircraft needs to do is catch one of them. Unlike traditional runways, carrier-based pilots do not stop by braking the wheels: instead, they are concerned with catching the wire and, barring that, escaping for a second round.

Landings Are Generally More Challenging Than Takeoffs

Compared with taking off, carrier landings are generally more difficult and unforgiving. During landings, the pilot must be able to hit a narrow landing area at the correct speed, descent rate, and flight path angle. The aircraft needs to catch the arresting wire all while the flight deck may be pitching and heaving and while battling crosswinds. There is inherently little margin for the pilot to correct.

Ejection seats allow pilots to survive most of the time when there is a catastrophic mishap. Fortunately, the two pilots in the September 2026 Growler landing incident ejected and survived. Another incident in 2025 saw a Super Hornet fail to catch the arresting wire, and both pilots successfully ejected as the aircraft tumbled overboard.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​During the Russian Navy's 'cursed' carrier Admiral Kuznetsov's final operational deployment in 2016, it lost two aircraft (a MiG-29K and Su-33) during landing. Thereafter, its air complement was redeployed to land.

Sometimes the cause of a mishap is unexpected and largely unrelated to this discussion of stall speeds, pilot error, arresting wires, and catapults. For example, in 2021, the Royal Navy lost its first F-35B off the HMS Queen Elizabeth after a protective air-intake cover had been mistakenly left inside the left engine duct during takeoff. ​​​​​​​

Importance Of Headwinds

When it comes to carrier operations, wind and the speed of the carrier itself are fundamental. An aircraft may need an airspeed of 140 knots to fly safely without stalling, and reducing the actual contact speed by a few tens of knots is massive. The carrier sails into the wind, which can contribute another few knots, assuming there is a wind.

At this point, the carrier itself is a moving platform that can sail into the wind at a rate of around 25 knots. This produces a wind over the deck of the carrier of around 45 knots. The aircraft can then maintain an airspeed of 140 knots, but a speed of around 95 knots relative to the flight deck.

Aircraft carrier operations officers are famous for being particularly concerned about the wind direction and speed during flight operations. One of the major issues carriers and their pilots have to deal with is crosswinds. These can become a problem and can push the aircraft laterally relative to the deck, although modern computer systems are remarkably effective at countering them.

The wind over the deck is also important during takeoff for the same reason in reverse. Aircraft need to accelerate until their airspeed reaches the required take-off speed. The short runway on a carrier means that aircraft need to achieve this in a very short amount of time and space.

Some Aircraft Are More Difficult To Land

Generally, aircraft have gotten easier to land on aircraft carriers over time, partly thanks to improved fly-by-wire and advanced computers assisting. Today, there isn't a single hardest aircraft to land, although it's worth noting that the F-14 Tomcat was notoriously demanding, especially in its early configurations.

The issues came from its large size, heavy weight, high approach workload, variable-sweep wings, the compressor stall and handling issues of early TF30 engines, and high approach angle of attack. By contrast, the modern F-35C is a highly advanced fighter that has been designed to reduce the pilot's workload and make the job easier.

The aircraft's flight-control system automatically manages much of the aircraft's precise control, allowing the pilot to concentrate on maintaining the approach. The large wings of the F-35C, relative to its weight, also give it excellent low-speed lift. As a rule of thumb, the most difficult carrier landings were the older aircraft.

These included the F-4 Phantom II (famously a flying brick), the F-8 Crusader, the A-7 Corsair II, and others. The E-2D Advanced Hawkeye radar aircraft is propeller-driven but also tricky to land on account of being large and requiring substantial arrestment. With that being said, because it is a turboprop, it is able to operate at relatively low speeds.