US fighter jet goes down over Iran, one crewmember rescued by US forces

LAST UPDATE | 13 hrs ago

IRANIAN AND AMERICAN forces were racing each other on Friday to recover the crew of the first US jet which crashed in Iran since the start of the war nearly five weeks ago.

Tehran said it had shot down the F-15 fighter and US media reported American special forces had rescued one of two crew members.

The rescue occurred as the US military was conducting a search operation, a US official and an Israeli official said.

Before the rescue was reported, social media footage showed American drones, aircraft and helicopters flying over the mountainous region where a TV channel affiliated with Iranian state television had said earlier that at least one pilot bailed out of the fighter jet.

An anchor on the channel urged residents to hand over any “enemy pilot” to police and promised a reward.

A reporter on the local official channel said: “Dear and honourable people of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province, if you capture the enemy pilot or pilots alive and hand them over to the police and military forces, you will receive a valuable reward and bonus.”

US Central Command (CENTCOM) did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “The president has been briefed”.

Separately, the New York Times reported that a second US jet – an A-10 “tankbuster” ground attack plane – had crashed near the Strait of Hormuz and that the lone pilot was safely rescued.

“An American hostile fighter jet in central Iranian airspace was struck and destroyed by the IRGC Aerospace Force’s advanced air defence system,” said a spokesperson for the Iranian military’s central operational command, Khatam al-Anbiya.

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“The jet was completely obliterated, and further searches are ongoing.”

The jet being shot down happened as Iran also fired on targets across the Middle East, keeping the pressure on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbours, despite US and Israeli insistence that Iran’s military capabilities have been all but destroyed

Meanwhile, Israel said it had launched a wave of strikes in the Iranian capital, alongside parallel attacks in Beirut.

The incident marked a major escalation in the conflict just two days after Donald Trump said the US had ‘beaten and completely decimated Iran’.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the US military “hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran. Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants!”, after US strikes damaged Iran’s tallest bridge.

In the area around the bridge, in Karaj, west of Tehran, an AFP reporter saw a villa and residential buildings with blown-out windows – but no military installations.

According to the martyrs foundation of Alborz province which includes Karaj, cited by the official IRNA agency, the attack killed 13 civilians and wounded dozens.

About 70% of Iran’s steel production capacity has been taken out, Israel said Friday.

In Abu Dhabi, Iran’s neighbour across the Gulf, metal giant Emirates Global Aluminium meanwhile said it could take up to a year before it can resume full production, after its site was damaged by Iranian strikes.

With additional reporting from PA and AFP.

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