China offered assistance to the United States on Monday in connection with the loss of two U.S. military aircraft in the South China Sea the previous day.

A U.S. helicopter and fighter jet crashed in the contested waters within an hour of one another during routine operations from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz , the Pacific Fleet had said. President Donald Trump later said "bad fuel" was believed to be the reason the two aircraft went down.

Newsweek contacted the U.S. Pacific Fleet for comment.

Why It Matters

The South China Sea is a a vital shipping lane for international trade and is rich in oil, gas and fisheries, and is also a flashpoint between China, which claims virtually the entire waterway, and several of its neighbours due to overlapping maritime and territorial clai

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