Published On 6 Apr 2026
United States President Donald Trump has announced that the US military has rescued a missing American fighter jet crew member in Iran.
The Air Force officer went missing in a remote part of Iran after the downing of his F-15 jet on Friday. Its two crew members ejected from the plane. The pilot was quickly rescued by US forces, but a search had to be launched for the F-15’s weapons systems officer.
In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump wrote that the US had rescued the second “seriously wounded, and really brave” airman from “deep inside the mountains of Iran”. It was reported that a firefight between US and Iranian forces took place in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province before the rescue. Iran has not confirmed this, however.
Here is how the complicated rescue mission unfolded:
What has Trump said about the rescue?
While the identity of the rescued airman has not been made public, Trump referred to him as “a highly respected Colonel”.
He added that the type of rescue mission that recovered him “is seldom attempted because of the danger to ‘man and equipment’”.
Trump said two raids had taken place, and the pilot was rescued in “broad daylight” during the second raid. It is unclear when precisely the pilot was rescued. The US president wrote that the rescue was “unusual, spending seven hours over Iran”.
In his post, Trump said he would talk more about the rescue mission during a news conference with the US military in the Oval Office of the White House on Monday at 1pm (17:00 GMT).
Trump wrote on Truth Social: “This brave Warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour, but was never truly alone because his Commander in Chief, Secretary of War, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and fellow Warfighters were monitoring his location 24 hours a day, and diligently planning for his rescue.”
Trump added that he had ordered dozens of aircraft carrying “lethal weapons” to be sent to retrieve the airman, who had managed to evade Iranian forces for two days.
How did the search unfold?
On Friday morning, the US confirmed that an F-15E Strike Eagle had been shot down over southern Iran. The F-15 is a tactical fighter jet used by the US Air Force that first flew in 1972. Modern variants of the jet cost more than $90m each.
State media outlets in Iran showed photos of what they said was wreckage from the F-15 and what appeared to be an ejection seat with an attached parachute.
Trump suggested that the US knew the location of the plane’s second airman and was tracking him as the rescue mission unfolded.
Iran was also racing to locate the airman. Tehran called on the public to hand over the soldier to the authorities in what appeared to be an effort to secure an American prisoner of war.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed on Sunday that Iranian forces had also destroyed two C-130 aircraft and two Black Hawk helicopters during the operation to rescue the US airman in southern Isfahan province.
What do we know about the two C-130 planes that Iran says it destroyed?
The C-130 Hercules and the newer C-130J Super Hercules variant were developed by the US weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin. They are military transport aircraft primarily used for tactical airlifts, troop transport and medical evacuations.
The Wall Street Journal reported that each C-130 costs more than $100m.
The newspaper said in a report on Sunday that the US blew up the C-130 jets on the ground during the rescue operation, quoting an unnamed person familiar with the matter. This unnamed official did not explain how the jets were downed during the rescue operation but told the outlet that it was necessary to destroy them to ensure they did not fall into enemy hands.
Has the US lost other military assets or personnel?
Yes. This conflict has killed 13 US service members and wounded more than 300, the US military’s Central Command said, but no US soldiers have been taken prisoner by Iran.
Since the start of the war on February 28, the US has lost three F-15 fighter jets in what it said was a friendly fire incident over Kuwait. A US military refuelling aircraft also went down over Iraq last month, killing all six crew members.
According to the US military, the last US fighter jet to be shot down by enemy fire before the F-15 on Friday was an A-10 Thunderbolt II during the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
At least one Black Hawk helicopter was hit during the initial rescue operation, US officials said, but it managed to stay airborne.
An A-10 Warthog aircraft was also hit near the Strait of Hormuz a short time after the F-15E on Friday, but its pilot was able to eject before the plane crashed and was subsequently rescued. Iranian media reported this aircraft was hit by Iran’s defence systems.
Iran has not yet confirmed that a firefight took place before the F-15 airman’s rescue. Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said a firefight appeared to have occurred in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province and nine people were reported to have been killed in “strikes” there although it was unclear if this was related to the US rescue mission.