{"id":187997,"date":"2026-04-07T06:11:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T06:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/187997\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T06:11:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T06:11:31","slug":"trump-reveals-amazing-new-details-of-the-rescue-of-the-f-15e-crew-member-who-was-injured-quite-badly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/187997\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump reveals amazing new details of the rescue of the F-15E crew member who was ‘injured quite badly’"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump on Monday revealed amazing new details about the harrowing 36 hours a US colonel known by the call sign \u201cDude Bravo 44\u201d <\/a>spent behind enemy lines in Iran bleeding \u201cprofusely\u201d before rescue<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The shot-down Air Force weapons officer, who was \u201cinjured quite seriously,\u201d scaled a cliff more than a mile up and treated his own wounds while hiding in a crevice in an area \u201cteeming with terrorists\u201d \u2014 before US forces miraculously flew him to safety <\/a>even after their aircraft got stuck in wet sand, Trump said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the United States military, we leave no American behind. We don\u2019t do it,\u201d Trump told reporters at a White House briefing.<\/p>\n

President Trump talks to the press about the rescue operation for the US airman in Iran. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The trapped airman\u2019s fortitude and \u201cabsolute commitment to surviving\u201d was the stuff of legends, said Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.<\/p>\n

The rescuers then demonstrated \u201ca breath-taking show of skill\u201d in successfully retrieving \u201cthe highly respected airman\u201d from the \u201ctreacherous mountain terrain,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

The pilot of the F-15E jet downed overnight Thursday into Friday had been quickly located and rescued south of Isfahan in Iran. <\/p>\n

But the colonel landed a \u201csignificant distance\u201d away from the pilot and could not be easily tracked, Trump said.<\/p>\n

The wreckage of US aircraft blown up during the rescue mission in Iran. AP<\/p>\n

The seriously wounded airman \u2014 armed with only a handgun against a swarm of blood-thirsty Iranian bounty-hunters and fighters \u2014 had to remain alive while the US launched \u201cone of the largest, most complex, most harrowing combat searches \u2026 ever attempted by the military,\u201d the president said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe heroic F-15 weapons system officer had evaded capture on the ground in Iran for almost 48 hours. That\u2019s a long time when you\u2019re in tough shape and when you\u2019re bleeding,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

He \u201cwas injured quite badly and stranded in an area teeming with terrorists from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran used sniffer dogs to try to track down the downed airman, but they were ineffective at locating him, according to US military sources.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were given a tremendous incentive to find this pilot,\u201d Trump said. \u201cDespite the peril, the officer followed his training and climbed into the treacherous mountain terrain and started climbing toward a higher altitude, something they were trained to do in order to evade capture.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to go as far away because they all head right to that site,\u201d he said of enemy forces. \u201cYou want to be as far away as you can.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the ace airman radioed a three-word message to US forces, although it first sparked fears that they were being lured into a trap.<\/p>\n

Trump pretends to aim a sniper gun while speaking with reporters at the White House on Monday. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cGod is good,\u201d the wounded colonel transmitted, a US defense official\u00a0told Axios<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he said on the radio sounded like something a Muslim would say,\u201d Trump told Axios, referencing the Islamic phrase \u201cAllahu Akbar,\u201d or \u201cGod is great.\u201d<\/p>\n

But US authorities quickly sussed out that it was no trap and continued with their frantic rescue bid.<\/p>\n

In total, 155 military aircraft including four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers and 13 rescue aircraft were deployed for the mission, Trump said<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of it was subterfuge,\u201d the president explained. \u201cWe wanted [Iranian forces] to think he was in another location.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the aircraft had to fly low as part of the mission, leaving them in the potentially deadly line of heavy fire, Trump said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got a helicopter with a lot of bullets in it,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

Trump described how military planes landed in an agricultural field and assembled three small helicopters to rescue the injured pilot without a single fatality.<\/p>\n

CIA Director John Ratcliffe said\u00a0his agency participated in the \u201cdeception campaign\u201d to buy the airman and his rescuers time.<\/p>\n

Trump said the F-15E pilot was badly injured when he was rescued. via REUTERS<\/p>\n

He said the CIA\u00a0 helped \u201cconfuse the Iranians who were desperately hunting for our airman\u2019\u2019 and also \u201cdeployed both human assets and exquisite technologies\u201d to find the crew member, likening the search \u201cto hunting for a single same grain of sand in the middle of a desert.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur intelligence reflects that the Iranians were embarrassed and ultimately humiliated by the success of this audacious rescue mission,\u201d Ratcliffe claimed.<\/p>\n

He described how the rescuers and the colonel they were saving almost didn\u2019t make it out.<\/p>\n

There was a problem with the \u201cwet sand\u201d and the \u201cweight\u201d of the aircraft trying to fly back to safety, Trump said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe \u2026 had all the men jumping back onto the planes, and they got pretty well bogged down. And we had a continued contingency plan which was unbelievable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Before the rescue was successful, \u201cI would have said that was impossible,\u2019\u2019 Trump said.<\/p>\n

Caine said, \u201cThe single most important contributor to a successful rescue operation is the spirit of attack inside the heart of that downed aviator.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump speaks about the conflict in Iran in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on April 6, 2026. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir will to survive, their will to evade, their will to recover, is everything. In this case, the back seater\u2019s absolute commitment to surviving made much of our efforts possible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLastly, and most importantly, to Dude Bravo 4-4, welcome home. Job well done,\u2019\u2019 Caine said.<\/p>\n

Trump said some military leaders opposed the rescue, fearing hundreds of American troop deaths.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot everybody was on board,\u201d Trump said, specifying that G. Caine and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth \u201cwere totally on-board.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were military people that said, \u2018You just don\u2019t do this, you don\u2019t go into the heart of a very powerful military,\u2019 \u201d the president said. \u201cThere were people within the military that said it\u2019s unwise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump asked Caine to share how many US troops were involved in the rescue, with the general demurring, \u201cI would love to keep that a secret.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hundreds,\u201d the president said. \u201cHundreds of people could have been killed, so we had people within the military that said this was not a wise [idea].\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran was \u201cembarrassed and humiliated\u201d by the daring rescue, Hegseth said.<\/p>\n

What to know about the daring rescue of the US airman in Iran:<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, it was an impotent Iranian threat,\u201d he said of the country\u2019s warnings against the US. \u201cAnd today, as the CIA director mentioned, Iran\u2019s military, and we know this, is embarrassed and humiliated, and they should be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cabinet official noted that the colonel was saved over Easter weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he was finally able to activate his emergency transponder, his first message was simple and it was powerful. He sent a message, \u2018God is good,\u2019 \u201d Hegseth recounted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that moment of isolation and danger, his faith and fighting spirit shone through,\u201d he said. \u201cShot down on a Friday \u2014 Good Friday \u2014 hidden in a cave, a crevice all of Saturday, and rescued on Sunday. Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday, a pilot reborn.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump on Monday revealed amazing new details about the harrowing 36 hours a US colonel known by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[14033,5336,153,14670,9,11,10,62206,87,1069,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-187997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-air-force","9":"tag-army","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-iran","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-operation-epic-fury","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-trump","18":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}