Tehran: Iran and the United States were locked in an intense high-stake search early on Saturday for the remaining crew member of a downed US F-15 fighter jet, in what officials described as the first American warplane lost inside Iran since the conflict began.
Iranian authorities said their air defences brought the jet down over central Iran, while US media reported that special forces teams had already rescued one of the aircraft’s two crew members, leaving the other still missing and believed to be on the run.
Iran’s military also announced that it had shot down a US A-10 ground-attack aircraft over the Gulf, saying its forces had targeted the plane as it operated near key shipping lanes, even as American reports said the A-10’s pilot managed to eject and was safely recovered.
The twin incidents underscored how the confrontation has now moved into a phase where direct clashes between Iranian air defences and US combat aircraft have become a central feature of the battlefield.
US Central Command did not immediately respond to questions about the F-15’s loss or the status of its crew, but the White House acknowledged the seriousness of the incident and its potential implications.
“The president has been briefed,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, indicating that the situation was being closely tracked at the highest levels in Washington.
In a separate interview with NBC, President Donald Trump dismissed suggestions that the downing of the jet might alter Washington’s diplomatic posture toward Tehran, responding: “No, not at all. No, it’s war.”
In Tehran, a spokesperson for Iran’s military central operational command gave its account of the shootdown, saying “an American hostile fighter jet in central Iranian airspace was struck and destroyed by the IRGC Aerospace Force’s advanced air defence system.”
The spokesperson declared that “the jet was completely obliterated, and further searches are ongoing,” as Iranian units fanned out across the presumed crash zone to recover wreckage, track possible escape routes and prevent US forces from staging a rescue on Iranian soil.
Iranian state and local media amplified the message, urging residents in the area to report any sign of the missing crew member. On one official television channel, a reporter went further, telling viewers that anyone who captured a crew member alive would “receive a valuable reward,” an appeal clearly intended to mobilise civilians and local militias in the hunt and to complicate any US extraction effort.
For the United States, the latest incident added to a growing list of aviation losses since the start of the campaign, including tankers, support aircraft and fighters operating over Iraq, the Gulf and Iran.
Military officials and analysts have warned that the combination of dense air defences, contested skies and high-tempo missions greatly increases the risk to crews. Retired US Brigadier General Houston Cantwell, drawing on decades of operational experience, told AFP that survival priorities for downed pilots are stark: “My priority would be, first of all, concealment, because I don’t want to be captured.”
Even as search-and-rescue teams on both sides scoured terrain for the missing F-15 crew member, fresh waves of strikes hit multiple countries.
AFP journalists reported powerful explosions in northern Tehran overnight, and Israel said it had launched a new wave of strikes on the Iranian capital in parallel with attacks on targets in Beirut, as its forces sought to degrade what it calls Iran-aligned infrastructure across the region.
West of Tehran, near a bridge hit in what Iranian officials said was a US strike, an AFP reporter observed a villa and nearby residential buildings with blown-out windows and debris scattered across the street, but no visible military positions. Local officials said the blast wave had ripped through surrounding neighbourhoods in seconds.
