A U.S. service member was rescued after a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle fighter was shot down over Iran, sparking a frantic effort to locate its two-person crew, in the first such incident since the war began nearly five weeks ago.
U.S. officials familiar with the situation said one crew member was still missing Friday night, after Iranian state media published images of a tail fin and other debris accompanied by an initial claim that an advanced U.S. F-35 had been hit by a new air defense system over central Iran.
Aviation experts said the photographed wreckage was actually that of an F-15E, from the US Air Force’s 494th Squadron, based at RAF Lakenheath in the UK, although it could not initially be confirmed when and where the photographs were taken. The markings on the wreckage appeared to match those on the tips of the rear fins of the Strike Eagles normally based in the United Kingdom.
US officials later unofficially confirmed that an F-15E had been shot down and that the Pentagon was scrambling to find the crew before the Iranians. There was no official comment from the US military on the incident.
The downing of a US fighter jet comes just days after Donald Trump gave a bellicose national address in which he claimed that the US had “completely defeated and decimated Iran” and that the conflict was “almost over”.
“We hold all the cards. They hold none,” the US president declared on Wednesday.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump had been briefed but did not offer any additional information. In a brief interview with NBC News, the president declined to talk about the search and rescue mission but said the incident would not affect negotiations with Iran. “No, not at all,” he said. “No, it’s war. We are at war.”
Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency said on Friday that Tehran had rejected a US proposal for a 48-hour ceasefire, citing an unnamed source.
Details of the rescue mission were few, but it is likely to have been a high-risk operation with rescue aircraft potentially exposed to fire from the ground. The condition of the second crew member was unclear and rescue efforts continued as evening fell in Iran.
Later footage filmed in Iran showed an American C-130 Hercules and an HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter flying at low altitude in southwestern Iran, and at one point refueling together during their rescue operation.
An Iranian businessman offered to pay a $60,000 (£45,000) reward to anyone who captured the crew members alive. And an anchor for an Iranian television channel, based in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province, a mountainous region in the country’s southwest, urged residents to hand over any “enemy pilots” to the police and promised a reward for anyone who did so.
This gave a clue to the location of the incident. Geolocated images of low-flying rescue aircraft indicated planes flying near Behbahan, in the neighboring province of Khuzestan, about 30 miles from the Gulf coast.
The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, ridiculed the United States by posting on social media: “After defeating Iran 37 times in a row, this brilliant war with no strategy they started has now been downgraded from ‘regime change’ to: ‘Hey! Can someone find our pilots? Please?'”
So far, Iran has not taken any American soldiers prisoner. Thirteen American service members have been killed and 300 wounded during a campaign in which more than 12,300 targets in Iran have been bombed by the United States alone.
A social media account claiming to be linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard posted an image of an ejector seat in a desert landscape, which appeared to be consistent with the ACES II type used on the F-15E. Justin Bronk, an aviation expert at the Rusithe Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), said: “If true, it would suggest that at least one of the two crews ejected safely.”
Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that the plane’s pilot had been detained, contradicting Tehran’s initial claim that the pilot had likely died in the incident. But then nothing emerged that could verify the revised Iranian statement.
The New York Times reported that a second US Air Force fighter jet crashed on Friday in the Persian Gulf region, but the sole pilot was rescued safely.
The A-10 Warthog attack plane went down near the Strait of Hormuz around the same time the Air Force F-15E was shot down over Iran, according to two U.S. officials. Iranian state media said its air defense system had targeted an “enemy” A-10 aircraft in southern waters near the Strait of Hormuz.
No US fighter jets had so far been lost over Iran during the five-week conflict, although three F-15Es were shot down by a Kuwaiti air defense system in a dramatic friendly fire incident on March 1.
The total cost to the US Air Force of the lost and damaged aircraft, which also includes 16 unmanned Reaper drones, has been estimated at more than $3 billion by the specialized news site Airforce Technology. An F-15E cost $31 million when delivered in the late 1990s; The newest models cost about $100 million.
Meanwhile, powerful explosions rocked northern Tehran, as Israel said it had launched a new wave of attacks on the Iranian capital and Beirut.
The Associated Press also reported, citing an Israeli official, that Israel had suspended airstrikes on areas “relevant” to the rescue operation in Iran.
Late Thursday, the US president reiterated his threat to bomb Iran’s infrastructure, hours after taking credit for an attack on a newly built 136-metre-high suspension bridge between Tehran and Karaj that killed eight people and injured 95.
“Our army, the largest and most powerful (by far!) in the world, has not even begun to destroy what is left in Iran. Next the bridges, then the power plants!” posted on social media, repeating a threat to destroy Iran’s power grid.
Recent images on Friday showed that the $400 million bridge, on a highway between the Iranian capital and a city to the northwest, had been severed in three places by the bombing, increasing the cost of its eventual repair.
More than 100 international law experts signed a joint statement on the Just Security website warning that statements made by Trump and other senior US officials, and the conduct of US forces “raise serious concerns about violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including potential war crimes.”
Of particular concern, they said, were threats made by the United States to Iran’s energy infrastructure. “International law protects objects essential for the survival of civilians from attack, and the attacks threatened by Trump, if implemented, could involve war crimes.”
A power and desalination plant in Kuwait was damaged in an attack on Friday, although Iran blamed Israel for the attack. The Mina al-Ahmadi refinery in the Gulf country was also closed after a drone attack from Iran, while the UK announced it had agreed to send a counter-drone team to assist the country in its defence.
Israeli media reported that the United States had told Israel that it did not want Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, killed because the Americans wanted to have at least one high-level political figure available who could negotiate a peace deal.
So far, however, Iran’s regime has shown little desire to stop fighting. Sirens sounded repeatedly in Israel, as missile attacks from Iran and Lebanon continued, but the number of casualties was small: 12 people were treated for physical injuries by the country’s emergency medical service in the last 24 hours.
Israel also carried out new attacks in southern Beirut after issuing an evacuation order for the area, which has been largely emptied of residents amid repeated incursions.