A U.S. Air Force refueling aircraft crashed in Iraq on Thursday after an apparent accident involving two KC-135 tankers supporting operations in Iran, military officials said.
U.S. officials have not said whether there are any confirmed fatalities, only that “rescue efforts are ongoing.”
In a brief statement disclosing the incident in western Iraq, U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations throughout the Middle East, said that the second aircraft landed safely and that the crash “was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.”
Three officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive situation, said the second aircraft was also a KC-135.
“We ask for continued patience to gather additional details and provide clarity for the families of service members,” the Centcom statement says.
The KC-135 Stratotanker carries a minimum crew of three — a pilot, co-pilot and boom operator, the person responsible for overseeing the aircraft refueling other planes. It can also carry a navigator or other additional crew members, depending on the mission.
Refueling aircraft have been in high demand since the start of the Trump administration’s war with Iran on Feb. 28. Over the past two weeks, U.S. forces have carried out relentless airstrikes against more than 6,000 targets, including ballistic missile sites, Iranian air defenses and weapons productions facilities.
Aerial refueling is one of the most complex military missions — but also one of the most critical due to the limited amount of fuel that fighter jets can carry and how quickly they run through their tanks.
When fighters are tasked with conducting strikes, tankers are often in the air as support. Once a refueling mission begins, tanker pilots have to maintain the massive refueler in steady flight and hold a close distance as the operator in the back of the plane controls the boom with a joystick, slowly lowering it toward an approaching plane.
It is inherently dangerous, and there have been multiple mishaps over the years in which an incorrect approach resulted in damage or death, including a U.S. Marine Corps mishap in Japan in 2018 where an F/A-18 aircraft collided with a C-130 tanker during a refueling mission, killing six.
It was not immediately clear from where the tankers involved in Thursday’s crash had taken off. The Pentagon has said little about where it stages aircraft due to concerns they could be targeted by Iranian forces.
The Washington Post reported in February, days before hostilities began, that numerous U.S. military aircraft were rapidly moved to bases throughout Europe — out of range from Iran’s ballistic missiles. That included several aerial refueling aircraft positioned at an airport on the Greek island of Crete.
The KC-135 crash was the second mishap reported by U.S. military officials on Thursday. Earlier in the day, the Navy said that another key asset in the Trump administration’s ongoing war against Iran, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, experienced an onboard fire in its main laundry area resulting in “non-life-threatening injuries” to two sailors.
Seven American service members have died due to hostile fire since the Iran war began Feb. 28.
Six fatalities resulted from an attack at a port in Kuwait on March 1. An Iranian drone struck an operations center there, officials said, killing and wounding troops who did not have overhead protection from aerial threats.
Another U.S. service member who was wounded in a separate attack in Saudi Arabia on March 1 died a week later from his injuries.
Three Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles were shot down mistakenly by Kuwaiti forces in “an apparent friendly fire incident” that occurred during the war’s opening stages.
More than 50,000 American troops are deployed in support of U.S. and Israeli operations against Iran, including almost every type of warplane in the Air Force fleet.
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