What is the F-15E fighter jet shot down over Iran?
The American F-15 Eagle fighter is a tactical fighter developed for the United States Air Force. One was shot down over Iran on April 3.
The dangerous, multi-day mission to rescue two American airmen stranded in Iranian territory after their fighter jet was shot down involved more than 150 planes, close-range gunfire and a complex CIA-led deception operation, President Donald Trump and administration officials said.
President Trump said at a White House press briefing on April 6 that the operation to rescue the injured officer in the back seat of the plane, who had been hiding in a cliff crevice in Iran for nearly 48 hours, involved 155 aircraft and hundreds of personnel.
President Trump said finding the officers was “like finding a needle in a haystack.”
Gen. Dan Cain, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a press conference that the F-15E fighter jet was shot down in Iran in the early hours of April 3, local time. President Trump said a US military plane was hit by a shoulder-mounted heat-seeking missile.
Both pilots and weapons systems officer on board ejected and landed several miles away in Iranian territory.
President Trump said the U.S. military deployed 21 aircraft “within hours” of the fighter jet crash. Trump said the plane flew for seven hours during daylight hours at low altitude over Iran before approaching the pilot and “facing very intense enemy fire.”
Kaine said a “close-range gunfight” occurred as the search and rescue team, which included an A-10 Warthog aircraft, a personnel recovery aircraft and a helicopter, entered Iranian airspace. As the helicopter scooped up the pilot, Iranians on the ground opened fire on the low-flying aircraft.
“We have a lot of ammunition in the helicopters we have,” Trump said.
During that operation, an A-10 was hit, the pilot flew into the airspace of a U.S. ally, was ejected from the aircraft, and was later safely recovered, Kane said.
Trump said the weapons systems official was seated behind the pilot in a two-seat F-15E plane that landed “a fair distance away” and was alone on the ground in Iran.
Trump said the stranded Air Force colonel scaled a cliff and took shelter in a crevice. The colonel “bleeded quite profusely” and “dressed his own wounds.”
“He was seriously injured and stranded in an area with a high concentration of Iranian military and local authorities,” Trump said.
Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth said the colonel’s first message after being able to activate an emergency transponder on the ground was “God is good.”
CIA Director John Ratcliffe told reporters at Trump’s briefing that after the agency discovered the personnel’s location, officials “performed an operation of deception.” The New York Times reported that the campaign included spreading false information that the officers had already been rescued while they were still stranded in the country.
The “daunting challenge” of finding officers is “comparable to finding a grain of sand in the middle of the desert,” Ratcliffe said.
President Trump said 155 aircraft participated in the mission to extract the officers from Iran, including four bombers, 64 fighter jets, 48 refueling tankers and 13 rescue planes. At one point, he said, the military blew up two old planes participating in the operation that were buried in sand inside Iranian territory, preventing Iran from recovering them or accessing the equipment inside.
Under the protection of an “air fleet” that included tactical drones and attack aircraft, weapons systems officers reached the secure area late on Easter Sunday, more than 50 hours after the operation began, Kane said.
President Trump told a news conference that Iranians would face “total destruction” if Tehran did not open the Strait of Hormuz by midnight, exactly three days after the rescue. “Every bridge in Iran will be destroyed,” he said, “and every power plant in Iran will go up in flames, explode and go out of business, never to be used again.”
Experts say that attacking Iran’s power plants and water infrastructure, as President Trump has threatened, would likely cause significant harm to Iranian civilians and constitute a war crime. According to estimates, more than 1,300 Iranians have been killed since the war began on February 28.
“They are willing to suffer to gain freedom,” Trump said.
