A US Air Force officer whose F-15E fighter jet was downed over Iran was rescued in a daring night-time mission, marking a rare success for American forces. President Donald Trump hailed the operation, noting that there was no loss of life, though US forces reportedly destroyed two of their own aircraft to prevent them from being captured by Iran.
The operation involved two MC-130J transport planes, which got stuck during the extraction, according to a US official cited by the Wall Street Journal. To prevent Iranian forces from seizing the planes, they were deliberately destroyed. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf mocked the mission on X, posting images of the smouldering wreckage.
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The rescued officer was the weapons-systems officer of the downed jet and suffered injuries, though Trump assured the public he would recover. This marked the second of two crew members rescued from separate extraction missions, an unprecedented feat in modern US military history.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed multiple US aircraft were lost during the operation, including a C-130 transport plane and two Black Hawk helicopters. With recent attacks having downed at least seven other US planes, Iranian forces say the total losses could soon reach double digits. Despite these conflicting accounts, Trump celebrated the extraction as a triumph, highlighting the precision and scale of the US effort deep inside enemy territory.
