In a triumphant post on Truth Social this morning, US President Donald Trump introduced the second US service member of the downed F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet had been rescued.
The high-stakes search started after the plane was shot down over Iran on Friday, with state media releasing images of what it claimed was wreckage of the jet, in addition to a broken ejection seat which NCS evaluation discovered was per that of an F-15E. The first crew member was rescued alive shortly after the crash.
Trump has touted the operation as “the first time in military memory that two U.S. Pilots have been rescued, separately, deep in Enemy Territory.”
The exact particulars of the astonishing operation have yet to emerge. Here’s what we know up to now — and what we don’t.
Both US service members of a US F-15 fighter jet that was downed over Iran on Friday have now been rescued. The first was rescued shortly after the crash and is receiving medical consideration.
The second service member, who was a Colonel, “sustained injuries,” in accordance to Trump, nevertheless he added he can be “just fine.”
The rescue operation concerned dozens of plane, armed with “the most lethal weapons,” Trump mentioned. No American troops had been killed or wounded throughout the rescue, he added.
As NCS’s nationwide safety analyst Alex Plitsas noted, the rescue prevented the crew member changing into a “strategic bargaining chip” for Tehran.
We don’t know the exact particulars of the rescue operation and the place it came about. Plitsas mentioned it might go down as “one of the most harrowing rescue operations in US military history.”
It stays unclear whether or not the US misplaced extra plane in the operation. In an try to undercut a triumphant second for Trump, Iran’s state Tasnim News Agency claimed “several enemy American aircraft” had been destroyed in the Isfahan area.
“The invading enemy aircraft in southern Isfahan, including 2 Black Hawk helicopters and one military transport aircraft C-130, were hit and are now burning,” it mentioned.
Several official Iranian retailers printed video purporting to present the smoking wreckage of the plane in a desert space. NCS is unable to confirm its authenticity and has reached out to the US army for remark.
The second serviceman’s actual location and identification stay unclear. Trump mentioned the US army had been monitoring his location 24 hours a day, and “diligently planning for his rescue.”
Ejecting from a army plane topics aircrew to excessive forces and can lead to trauma, that means that questions stay over the nature of his accidents. Former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath previously told NCS it’s a “very violent thing to happen to the body.”
Despite many in Iran calling for the rapid seize of the second downed US crew member, with officers providing a reward to anybody who discovered and handed him over, he evaded being caught behind enemy strains for practically two days. According to NCS’s chief safety analyst Jim Sciutto, the airman made contact with US army as early as Friday.
NCS’s Danya Gainor, Jessie Yeung and Kit Maher contributed reporting.