A U.S. Navy fighter jet has returned home carrying a remarkable symbol from its combat deployment: the silhouette of a broken submarine.
The F/A 18F Super Hornet, assigned to the Navy's VFA 41 Black Aces squadron, was photographed returning to Naval Air Station Lemoore in California on October 1 following its deployment aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
But one detail immediately caught the attention of aviation observers.
Painted on the aircraft was the silhouette of a submarine broken in two, accompanied by the words "Sub Buster."
According to The Aviationist, the marking indicates that the aircraft was involved in the destruction of an Iranian submarine during Operation Epic Fury. The aircraft has been identified as Navy Bureau Number 168491.
Exactly which submarine the Super Hornet helped destroy remains unclear.
The War Zone reports that the same aircraft also carried several more conventional bomb shaped mission markings. Details released about VFA 41's deployment show that the squadron employed a wide range of weapons during combat operations.
The submarine symbol is particularly unusual because fighter aircraft are far more commonly decorated with markings representing enemy aircraft, drones or ground targets.
A submarine kill marking on a carrier based fighter is exceptionally rare.
The Aviationist notes that Iran lost multiple submarines during the conflict, making it impossible to identify the specific vessel solely from the marking painted on the aircraft.
One possibility discussed by aviation observers is that the aircraft participated in an attack against a submarine while it was in port rather than engaging a submerged vessel at sea. The available photograph does not establish how the submarine was destroyed or what weapon was used.
That distinction is important because the "Sub Buster" marking does not necessarily mean the Super Hornet conducted a traditional anti submarine attack.
What it does indicate is that the aircraft appears to have played some role in an operation that resulted in the destruction of a submarine.
The unusual marking has now attracted international attention.
Searches for "истребитель," the Russian word for fighter aircraft, climbed above 5,000 on Google Trends, with Russian language outlets reporting on the mysterious symbol appearing on the American jet.
The Super Hornet remains one of the U.S. Navy's principal carrier based combat aircraft, capable of conducting air combat and precision strikes against targets on the ground and at sea.
For now, the broken submarine painted on aircraft 168491 tells only part of the story.
Exactly what happened during the mission that earned it the nickname "Sub Buster" remains a mystery.
