Helicopters and transport planes were seen flying low over southwestern Iran on Friday, April 3, in what looked like a hunt for a missing American airman. Israel paused its own strikes while the search went on, according to Fox News.
The airman was one of two crew members on a U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle that went down over Iran. A U.S. official told MS NOW that Iranian forces shot the jet down. One crew member was recovered, and the second was still unaccounted for late Friday.
It is the first known loss of a U.S. aircraft inside Iran since Operation Epic Fury began on Feb. 28. The campaign had run five weeks and logged 13,000 combat flights by then. President Donald Trump has been briefed, and the administration told congressional leaders, two sources confirmed to Fox. Central Command had not yet confirmed the incident. Reuters, citing the cluster.app summary, reported that the White House acknowledged the briefing while the Pentagon declined immediate comment.
Competing accounts of the crash
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and state media claimed the shootdown over central Iran, in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province. Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya command said its air defenses “completely destroyed” the aircraft. Early Iranian reports called it an F-35. Photos of wreckage that Iranian media later released pointed instead to an F-15E, likely from the 494th Fighter Squadron at RAF Lakenheath. Fox News said it had not verified the images, which included an ejection seat. Iran also claimed to have hit an A-10 near the Strait of Hormuz.
A second U.S. military plane crashed near the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, an official told MS NOW, and that pilot was rescued safely. Other reports said the rescue effort itself drew Iranian fire, and that an A-10 pilot ejected over the Persian Gulf before being picked up.
A bounty on the missing airman
Iranian state outlets urged residents to find the pilot before U.S. forces did. Some reports mentioned a reward of 10 billion toman for capturing the “intruder.” A provincial governor said anyone who captured or killed the crew member “would be specially commended.”
Combat search-and-rescue inside hostile territory ranks among the riskiest missions the military flies, often pushing aircraft deep into enemy air defenses. U.S. fighter crews train in survival, evasion, resistance and escape for exactly this situation.
What Washington had been saying
For weeks, U.S. officials had said the United States and Israel held “complete control over Iranian skies.” They recently sent slow, non-stealthy B-52 bombers into Iran. In an address on Wednesday, Trump said: “They have no anti-aircraft equipment. Their radar is 100% annihilated. We are unstoppable.” He also said operations should wrap up within two to three weeks.
Analysts told PBS the attack may have involved mobile systems or shoulder-fired missiles rather than only large fixed batteries. Iranian claims of shooting down American planes have come up repeatedly in the war, and U.S. officials denied the earlier ones.
Central Command says 13 U.S. service members have died in the conflict and more than 350 have been wounded, most of whom have returned to duty. Oil traded around $109 a barrel, about 50% above its prewar level, Reuters reported. Parliamentary speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf used social media to mock Washington’s war strategy.
Trump, in a Truth Social post that morning, said that “with a little more time” the U.S. “can easily” open the Strait of Hormuz. He warned the night before that U.S. forces would destroy Iranian bridges and power plants next.
Sources
- US pilot rescued from downed F-15E fighter jet in Iran, search for second crew member ongoing
- Iran war live updates: U.S. fighter jet shot down, second plane crashes near Hormuz
- US F-15E Shot Down Over Iran; One Crew Rescued Amid Ongoing Search
Sources
- Pilot rescued from downed jet in Iran | Fox News
- U.S. fighter jet shot down, second plane crashes near Hormuz
