US Jets Enter Venezuelan Airspace Over Gulf

Two U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets flew over the Gulf of Venezuela on Tuesday, entering what Venezuelan authorities described as national airspace in a maneuver that heightened tensions between Washington and Caracas. The aircraft, operating in tandem, circled the area around noon for approximately 40 minutes at an altitude of about 25,000 feet before heading north, according to flight tracking data from applications like Flightradar24.

The jets traced a bowtie-shaped pattern over waters near the northern end of Lake Maracaibo, less than 100 miles northeast of Maracaibo, Venezuela's second-largest city. This flight path passed between Zulia and Falcon states, key regions for the country's energy sector, including major oil refineries at Amuay and Cardón, as well as fishing grounds frequented by local vessels and oil tankers. Zulia, which borders Colombia, holds vast crude oil reserves estimated at 150 billion barrels beneath Lake Maracaibo, one of the continent's largest freshwater bodies spanning 5,000 square miles.

A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the mission as a routine training flight conducted entirely in international...