In the black hours before dawn Sunday, hundreds of American special operations troops punched deep into hostile Iranian territory, extracted a wounded Air Force colonel whose fighter jet had been shot down 48 hours earlier, and flew him to safety in a mission so perilous it required blowing up two of their own transport planes to keep them from enemy hands.
“WE GOT HIM!” President Donald Trump announced on social media shortly after midnight. “The United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in U.S. History.”
The colonel, a weapons systems officer aboard an F-15E Strike Eagle, had been hiding in mountainous terrain for more than a full day with nothing but a pistol and a beacon.
His jet went down on Friday after Iranian air defenses scored the first enemy kill against an American manned aircraft in 20 years. The pilot ejected safely and was recovered quickly. But the weapons officer had vanished into a landscape crawling with hostile forces.
What followed was a life-or-death race across two days, pitted against Iranian troops who were broadcasting rewards for any American they could capture and calling on civilians to “target” downed airmen.
The rescue operation that unfolded Saturday night involved hundreds of commandos, dozens of warplanes, attack helicopters, cyber assets, and space-based intelligence.
U.S. attack aircraft bombed and strafed Iranian convoys trying to reach the area where the airman was hiding. When American forces finally converged on his position, a firefight erupted, according to former senior military officials briefed on the operation.
Two American rescue helicopters came under ground fire during the search. Some service members aboard were injured. All returned to base.
The incident marked the first known instance of an American crewed aircraft being brought down inside hostile territory since the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran began five weeks ago.
The weapons officer was equipped with a secure communications device that allowed him to coordinate with his rescuers. A senior military official described the extraction as one of the most challenging and complex special operations missions in American history.
But the night was not over when the colonel was lifted out.
Two transport planes that were supposed to carry the commandos and the rescued airman to safety became disabled at a remote base inside Iran. Rather than abandon the aircraft to Iranian forces, commanders flew in three fresh planes, extracted all personnel, and blew up the two crippled transports where they sat.
The F-15E went down in a region of Iran where opposition to the Tehran government runs deep. That terrain, and possibly local civilians willing to shelter a fleeing American, may have given the colonel the margin he needed to survive until the commandos arrived. The CIA often works such angles in what the military calls “unconventional assisted recovery.”
The shootdown and the rescue come five weeks into a war the United States and Israel launched Feb. 28. Hopes for a quick end faded Thursday when Trump vowed more aggressive strikes on Iran. Tehran responded by firing more missiles at Israel and Gulf Arab states, demonstrating that its ability to strike neighbors remains intact despite the president’s assurances that the Iranian threat was nearly eliminated.
Thousands have been killed across the Middle East since the war began. Iran’s attacks on Gulf states and its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz have disrupted global energy supplies. On Thursday, some 40 nations held virtual talks on restoring freedom of navigation in waters that carry a fifth of the world’s oil.
The International Monetary Fund, World Bank and International Energy Agency warned Wednesday that the war is having “substantial, global and highly asymmetric” effects and said they would coordinate financial support for the hardest-hit countries.
For one night, at least, those wider catastrophes receded behind a single, stark fact: An American airman, alone and hunted behind enemy lines, came home.
No U.S. personnel were killed in the rescue. The colonel sustained injuries, Trump said, but “he will be just fine.”
The president did not say whether the same could be said for the two transport planes left burning on Iranian soil.
Two U.S. transport planes were intentionally destroyed on Iranian soil after becoming disabled during a search and rescue mission for a downed F-15E jet.
These planes were disabled at a remote base, prompting U.S. commanders to destroy them to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands.