DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A U.S. fighter jet was shot down in Iran on Friday and one crew member was rescued, officials said, the first aircraft downed since the war began nearly five weeks ago.
It marked a major escalation in the conflict just two days after President Donald Trump said in a national address that the U.S. has “beaten and completely decimated Iran” and was “going to finish the job, and were going to finish it very fast.”
The rescue occurred as the U.S. military was conducting a search operation, a U.S. official and an Israeli official said. Three people familiar also confirmed that a search had been underway. All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitivity of the situation.
No official details were released. The number of crew on board and the whereabouts of any others were not immediately known.
The circumstances that downed the plane were at first unclear. But in an email from the Pentagon obtained by The Associated Press, the U.S. military said it received notification of “an aircraft being shot down” in the Middle East, without providing more details.
The jet being shot down happened as Iran also fired on targets across the Mideast, keeping the pressure on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors, despite U.S. and Israeli insistence that Iran’s military capabilities have been all but destroyed.
Iran’s attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure and its tight grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas transits in peacetime, have roiled stock markets, sent oil prices skyrocketing, and threatened to raise the cost of many basic goods, including food.
Shooting could mark a new level of pressure on the US
Prior to word of the rescue, 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 Friday 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.
It was the first time the U.S. has lost aircraft in Iranian territory during the conflict and could mark a new level of pressure being placed on the U.S. military.
Throughout the war, Iran has made a series of claims about shooting down piloted enemy aircraft that turned out not to be true. Friday was the first time that Iran went on television urging the public to look for a suspected downed pilot.
Iranian state media said that Iran’s military shot down a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle. The aircraft is a variation of the Air Force fighter jet that carries a two-person crew consisting of a pilot and weapons system officer.
Alan Diehl, a former investigator for the Air Force Safety Center, said the Strike Eagle has an emergency locator beacon in a survival kit that can be set to activate automatically or manually.
The Pentagon did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a previous statement that Trump had been briefed but did not offer any additional information.
Iran targets a desalination plant and a refinery
News about the downed aircraft came after Kuwait’s Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery came under Iranian attack, and the state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp. said firefighters were working to control several blazes.
