What we know about the commando raid to recover the F-15 crew member in Iran
American special operations forces located and extracted the missing F-15E crew member in southwestern Iran overnight. The complex recovery mission involved hundreds of troops, a forward operation point inside the country and multiple aircraft being flown in — with some being destroyed by the U.S. after they failed on the ground.
The complex rescue operation in a mountainous part of the country came nearly two days after a two-seater Air Force F-15E was shot down over Iran. Overnight U.S. officials confirmed the missing airman, a weapons systems officer on a two-seater F-15E, had been recovered. President Donald Trump publicly announced the rescue in a social media post, saying that the military pulled off “one of the most daring” search and rescue operations.
“The Iranian Military was looking hard, in big numbers, and getting close,” Trump said in a follow-up post.
Sunday afternoon, U.S. Central Command sent out its first statement on the incident, saying that the “service members were safely recovered during separate search and rescue missions.”
The search was a race against time, with the U.S. and Iran trying to locate the missing airman after American forces successfully extracted the F-15’s pilot on Friday. The operation involved a large number of special operations commandos including SEAL Team 6 and other troops, the New York Times reported. They were able to reach the airman, who had fled into the mountains to hide, and get him to a temporary airstrip U.S forces had set up.
Trump said that there were no U.S. casualties in the rescue operation. Trump initially said that the airman, who he identified as a colonel, had taken injuries but “would be fine,” later describing the airman as “seriously wounded ” in a later post. The military has not identified the airman or said what unit the F-15E was from. Reports and images of the wreck suggest it is from the 48th Air Wing.
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The F-15 went down on Friday while flying a combat mission, according to CENTCOM. Iran claimed to have taken it out with anti-air weapons. U.S. forces quickly launched combat search and rescue operations, recovering the pilot of the fighter jet in a daytime operation.
The crewman was missing for nearly two days. U.S. aircraft were spotted searching two areas in southwestern Iran, in the Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad and Khuzestan provinces. Iranian state media reported that a reward had been offered for the crew member’s location. Multiple outlets reported that the airman was able to flee into the mountains and hid in a crevice to avoid capture, evading Iranians before the U.S. was able to pinpoint the American’s location. The Wall Street Journal reported that American MQ-9 Reaper drones flew overhead, firing at Iranian groups that got close to the airman’s position.
While special operations elements worked to get to the airman, U.S. forces were also setting up a forward arming and refueling point, or FARP, in a flat part of the mountainous region. They flew in multiple helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft into the extraction zone.
However during the operation, two of the C-130 aircraft got stuck on the airfield and were unable to depart, according to reports. More aircraft were flown in to extract American troops, who destroyed the two aircraft rather than let them be taken intact. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has since released images and videos purportedly showing the airfield, with the burned wreckage of at least one C-130 and two helicopters.
During combat search and rescue operations on Friday, a second U.S. aircraft, an A-10 Thunderbolt II, better known as a “Warthog,” was damaged near the Strait of Hormuz. The pilot was able to get the Warthog into Kuwaiti airspace before ejecting from the crashing plane, and was recovered safely. Meanwhile C-130s and U.S. helicopters were spotted flying low over Iran searching for the F-15 crew on Friday. Two Black Hawk helicopters were hit by small arms fire.
The A-10 and F-15 were the first crewed American planes to be downed by Iran in flight since the war began on Feb. 28. Several aircraft have been damaged or destroyed on the ground by Iranian drones and missiles. Three F-15s were shot down over Kuwait in a friendly fire incident, while one KC-135 refueling tanker crashed in Iraq last month, killing six.