{"id":373300,"date":"2026-04-03T17:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T17:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/373300\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T17:20:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T17:20:07","slug":"us-f-15e-jet-confirmed-shot-down-over-iran-as-tehran-releases-wreckage-images-us-israel-war-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/373300\/","title":{"rendered":"US F-15E jet confirmed shot down over Iran as Tehran releases wreckage images | US-Israel war on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

A US F-15E Strike Eagle fighter has been shot down over Iran<\/a>, prompting a frantic US search and rescue effort for its two-strong crew, in the first such incident since the start of the five week long war.<\/p>\n

Iranian state media released images<\/a> of a tail fin and other debris early on Friday accompanied by an initial claim that a US F-35 had been hit by a new air defence system over central Iran and the pilot probably killed.<\/p>\n

Aviation experts said the wreckage pictured was in fact from a F-15E, from the US air force\u2019s 494th squadron, based at RAF Lakenheath in the UK, though it could not at first be confirmed when and where the pictures were taken.<\/p>\n

US officials familiar with the situation later confirmed off the record that an F-15E had been brought down and the Pentagon was scrambling to find the crew before the Iranians. There was no official comment from the US military<\/a> about the incident.<\/p>\n

One crew member was reported as having been rescued as the situation developed, in what is likely to have been a high-risk operation with rescue aircraft probably exposed to fire from the ground. It was not immediately clear if the jet had a full crew of two.<\/p>\n

Subsequent footage filmed in Iran showed a US C-130 Hercules and HH-60 Pavehawk helicopters flying low and at one point refuelling together, amid fresh Iranian speculation that the plane crew may have ejected and survived.<\/p>\n

Images taken from Iran showing helicopters refuelling. Photograph: Iran state media<\/p>\n

Justin Bronk, an aviation expert from the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), said the use of the specialist helicopters \u201csuggested a combat search and rescue mission is under way to locate and extract the two aircrew from the F-15E\u201d.<\/p>\n

No US troops have so far been taken prisoner by Iran. A total of 13 American service personnel have been killed and 300 have been wounded during a campaign in which more than 12,300 targets in Iran have been bombed by the US alone.<\/p>\n

A social media account claiming to be linked to Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards posted a picture of an ejector seat in a desert landscape<\/a>, which appeared to be consistent with the ACES II type used in F-15Es. Bronk said: \u201cIf genuine, it would suggest that at least one of the two aircrew did eject safely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Picture of an ejector seat posted by Revolutionary Guards. Photograph: X @IRGCIntelli<\/p>\n

The presenter on an Iranian TV channel urged residents to hand over any \u201cenemy pilot\u201d to police and promised a reward for anyone who did. That channel is based in Kohkilouyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province, a mountainous region in the south-west of the country.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Tasnim news agency reported that the pilot of the jet \u2013 still incorrectly describing it as an F-35 \u2013 had been taken into custody, contradicting Tehran\u2019s initial claim that the pilot had probably died in the incident.<\/p>\n

Overnight, the US Central Command, which is leading the attack on Iran, had denied Iranian claims that another F-35 jet had been downed over Qeshm Island in the strait of Hormuz. \u201cAll US fighter aircraft are accounted for,\u201d it said at the time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Up to now no US fighter jets had been lost over Iran during the five-week-long conflict, though three F-15Es were shot down by a Kuwaiti air defence system in a dramatic friendly fire incident on 1 March.<\/p>\n

An F-35 fighter reportedly had to make an emergency landing at a US airbase in the Middle East after sustaining damage from the ground. A US E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system aircraft was destroyed at the Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia on 27 March in an Iranian strike.<\/p>\n

The total cost to the US air force of lost and damaged aircraft has been roughly estimated at more than $3bn (\u00a32.2bn) by the specialist newsite Airforce Technology, which also includes 16 uncrewed Reaper drones. An F-15E cost $31m when delivered in the late 1990s; newer models cost closer to $100m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A US F-15E Strike Eagle fighter has been shot down over Iran, prompting a frantic US search and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-373300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}