All six crew members died after a U.S. military KC-135 refueling aircraft that was part of the American and Israeli war against Iran crashed in neighboring Iraq, United States Central Command said on Friday.
In a statement, it said that rescue efforts were continuing and that the circumstances of the crash were under investigation, but added that “the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.”
The deaths brought the number of U.S. service members killed in operations related to the Iran conflict to at least 13.
Central Command did not immediately identify the crew members who were killed, pending notification to their families.
It said on Thursday that an incident involving two aircraft had “occurred in friendly airspace,” and one aircraft went down, while the other landed safely.
The last American tanker crash occurred in 2013. In that incident, a KC-135, taking part in refueling missions over Afghanistan, crashed soon after departure from the Manas airport in the Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan. Three airmen died in the incident.
The KC-135s are among the most heavily used aircraft in the Air Force’s arsenal, and among its oldest airframes, at more than 60 years. The planes are used to refuel all kinds of aircraft to include fighter jets, surveillance planes and cargo aircraft.
A U.S. official said that the other plane involved in the collision was also a KC-135, which landed safely.
Air-to-air refueling missions are performed regularly by Air Force pilots and mishaps are rare. But the maneuver is still challenging, especially in bad weather or high winds. Investigators suspect a midair collision may have caused the crash, but details are still murky, Air Force officials said. The inquiry is still going on along with a search and rescue effort to locate the downed crew.
The western Iraq region where the plane crashed consists mostly of isolated desert.
This is the fourth manned aircraft to be downed since Operation Epic Fury began in late February, though none of the crashes were caused by hostile Iranian fire. Three Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle fighters were shot down by Kuwait F/A-18 aircraft in a friendly fire incident in early March.
Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting.
Helene Cooper is a Pentagon correspondent for The Times. She was previously an editor, diplomatic correspondent and White House correspondent.
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