Vietnam has quietly accelerated land reclamation at South Reef, a once-remote coral feature in the Spratly Islands, as Chinese pressure grows.

Last week, the Navy recovered two aircraft that crashed into the South China Sea in two separate late October incidents off of USS Nimitz (CVN-68), the sea service announced Tuesday. A contracted boat equipped with an unmanned system retrieved the F/A-18F Super Hornet and MH-60R Sea Hawk from a depth of approximately 400 feet.

The aircraft crash incident remains under investigation.

The Eurofighter Typhoon has been developed collaboratively between European airline manufacturer Airbus and producer BAE Systems.

Manila rushed two patrol boats to protect fishermen in the South China Sea after a water cannon attack from Chinese cutters that left three injured in one of the most severe incidents at Sabina Shoal this year.

Manila says Chinese forces on Beijing-occupied Subi Reef fired flares toward a patrol plane conducting a "lawful overflight."

The US Navy has recovered two aircraft that crashed into the South China Sea in October while flying off the USS Nimitz, the service said in a statement Tuesday.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS, a Washington, D.C.-based foreign and security think tank, stated in a report released on the 9th that “Although South Korea and China established a Provisional Measures Zone (PMZ) as a jointly managed area in the West Sea under the 2001 fisheries agreement,