The U.S. military lost its first fighter jet to enemy fire from Iran on Friday, U.S. and Israeli officials said, a setback for the Trump administration, which has repeatedly sought to project that American warplanes had established air supremacy in the five-week war.
The jet, an F-15E Strike Eagle, was carrying a crew of two. U.S. military officials said they had ejected from the aircraft.
One of the two airmen was rescued, while the second crew member had not been accounted for as of Friday afternoon.
The downing of the warplane set in motion a large-scale rescue operation.
Here’s what we know:
Iran’s military showed it still had the capacity to strike.
Iran shot down the F-15E over the southwestern part of the country on Friday, two days after President Trump declared in an address to the nation Wednesday night that the United States was moving closer to achieving its military objectives.
“Over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong,” Mr. Trump said, promising intense bombing.
His defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, echoed the president’s words on social media.
“Back to the Stone Age,” Mr. Hegseth wrote.
Iran’s state broadcaster shared images that it claimed showed the warplane’s wreckage.
The images show the wingtip and top section of a vertical stabilizer from a U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle, according to Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow who studies air power and technology at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense-focused research institution in London.
He said markings on the vertical stabilizer section were consistent with the 494th Fighter Squadron based at R.A.F. Lakenheath in Britain.
Mr. Trump had been briefed about the situation, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said.
A second Air Force combat plane crashed in the Persian Gulf region on Friday, and the lone pilot was safely rescued, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.
They did not say what caused it to go down.
Both crew members ejected from the aircraft.
An intense rescue operation played out in the skies over southwest Iran, where videos posted to social media and verified by The New York Times showed a C-130 aircraft and military helicopters flying at a low altitude.
Pilots are normally equipped with a radio in their kit, and ejection seats have a beacon that can help in rescue missions.
But those kinds of operations are fraught with elevated risk.
In 2005, Taliban forces in eastern Afghanistan ambushed four U.S. Navy SEALs who were part of a rescue mission. Another 16 U.S. service members were also killed when their rescue helicopter was shot down.
On Friday, Iran’s regime offered a reward for the capture of “enemy’s pilot or pilots,” who it said should be turned over alive to security forces, according to a local affiliate of Iran’s state broadcaster.
The downed jet was not a stealth fighter.
U.S. military officials identified the downed warplane as an F-15E Strike Eagle, which does not have the stealth capabilities of more recent generations of fighter jets.
Introduced in 1986, the warplane is considered a “dual-role” aircraft, meaning it can be used for air-to-ground and air-to-air missions.
It carries a crew of two, the pilot and a weapons system officer, according to the U.S. Air Force.
It can reach speeds of 1,875 miles per hour, or Mach 2.5, and carry a payload capacity of more than 20,000 pounds. The fighter jet has been used by the U.S. military in Iraq, Libya and Syria.
Pranav Baskar contributed reporting.
Neil Vigdor covers breaking news for The Times, with a focus on politics.
The post What We Know About the U.S. Fighter Jet Shot Down by Iran appeared first on New York Times.
