TEHRAN: Iranian and American forces raced each other Saturday to recover a crew member of the first US fighter jet to go down inside Iran since the start of the war.
Tehran said it had shot down the F-15 warplane, while US media reported United States special forces had rescued one of its two crew members, with the other still missing.
Iran’s military also said it downed a US A-10 ground attack aircraft in the Gulf, with US media saying the pilot was rescued.
US Central Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the loss of the F-15, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “The president has been briefed.”
President Donald Trump told NBC the F-15 loss would not affect negotiations with Iran, saying: “No, not at all. No, it’s war.”
A view of a US Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II, also known as the Warthog, similar to the warplane hit by Iranian fire that reportedly crashed in Kuwait on April 3, 2026. (AFP)
The war erupted more than a month ago with US-Israeli strikes on Iran that killed supreme leader Ali Khamenei, triggering retaliation that spread the conflict throughout the Middle East, convulsing the global economy and impacting millions of people worldwide.
‘Valuable reward’
A spokesperson for the Iranian military’s central operational command said “an American hostile fighter jet in central Iranian airspace was struck and destroyed by the IRGC Aerospace Force’s advanced air defense system.”
“The jet was completely obliterated, and further searches are ongoing.”
An Iranian television reporter on a local official channel said anyone who captured a crew member alive would “receive a valuable reward.”
The US military has announced the loss of several aircraft during Iran operations, including one tanker that crashed in Iraq and three F-15s shot down by Kuwaiti friendly fire.
Retired US brigadier general Houston Cantwell — who has 400 hours of combat flight experience — said key goals for downed pilots include determining their location and figuring out how to communicate.
“My priority would be, first of all, concealment, because I don’t want to be captured,” he told AFP.
Shoulder-fired missile likely used, experts say
US Central Command said in a statement Wednesday that American forces have flown more than 13,000 missions in the Iran war while striking more than 12,300 targets.
After more than a month of punishing US-Israeli airstrikes, a degraded Iranian military nonetheless remains a stubborn foe. Its steady stream of strikes against Israel and Gulf Arab neighbors have been causing regional upheaval and global economic shock.
When it comes to American dominance over Iran’s airspace, there’s still a distinction between air superiority and air supremacy, said Behnam Ben Taleblu, Iran program senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish Washington think tank.
“A disabled air defense system is not a destroyed air defense system,” he said. “We shouldn’t be shocked that they’re still fighting.”
American planes have been flying missions at lower altitudes, which makes them more vulnerable to Iran’s missiles, Taleblu said. It’s possible that Iran fired at the F-15 with a surface-to-air missile, but it’s more likely that a portable, shoulder-fired missile was used, he said. Those are much harder to detect and reflect how Iran is “weak but still lethal.”
“This is a regime that is fighting for its life,” he said.
Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and a senior defense adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed that a shoulder-fired missile was likely used against the fighter jet.
Nonetheless, the American air war against Iran has been a “tremendous success” so far, he said.
To put things in perspective, he said the loss rate for American warplanes flying over Germany during World War II was 3 percent at one point, which would equal about 350 warplanes in the US war against Iran.
“But then there’s the political side — you have a American public that is accustomed to fighting bloodless wars,” Cancian said. “Then a large part of the country doesn’t support the war. So to them, any loss is unacceptable.”
Pilots are trained on what to do if their plane is hit
The last US jet shot down in combat was struck by an Iraqi surface-to-air missile over Baghdad on April 8, 2003. The pilot safely ejected and was rescued, according to the Air Force.
In high-threat environments like missions over Iran, Cantwell, the retired general, said an aviator’s blood pressure goes up and they become highly alert to incoming missiles. Those are typically either infrared- or radar-guided missiles, he said, requiring different evasive tactics.
If they are hit and need to eject from their aircraft, they are trained on what to do next, he said.
Pilots learn to check for wounds after a violent ejection and the shock of a missile explosion and, most crucially, how they are going to communicate their location so rescuers can find them.
At the same time, he said, the enemy is likely working to intercept the communications or even spoof the location.
Helicopters are more at risk than other aircraft
The planes that went down Friday were not the first crewed American aircraft to be lost overall in Iran.
A military helicopter and airplane exploded in 1980 during an aborted mission to rescue several dozen American hostages at the US embassy in Tehran, according to the Air Force Historical Support Division.
After a series of setbacks, including severe dust storms and mechanical failures, the mission was called off. As the aircraft took off, the rotor blades of one of the RH-53 helicopters collided with an EC-130 aircraft full of fuel and both exploded, killing eight.
More US helicopters have been shot down in recent decades, including a MH-47 Army Chinook helicopter that was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade in Afghanistan in 2005, killing 16. Helicopters are more dangerous because “the lower and the slower, the more susceptible you are,” Cantwell said.
That’s why those who went out on this week’s rescue missions, likely in helicopters, he said, did “such a brave and honorable act.”
• with AP
