NACOGDOCHES, Texas (KETK)– A local Marine reserve member and SFA pilot instructor explained that military pilots go through extensive the Survival, Evasion, Resist and Escape training if their jets ever crash or are shot down.

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An F-15 fighter jet was reportedly shot down by the Iranian military on Friday; one pilot was found while the other remains missing in the region.

Marine pilot and flight instructor at SFA Justin Pitcock is very familiar with the turmoil in the Middle East and the challenges that fighter pilots must face.

“I deployed in 2023 to the Horn of Africa, where we had a different strait with a lot of trouble from the Houthis in Yemen,” Pitcock said.

Pitcock said pilots are trained under the Survival, Evasion, Resist and Escape (SERE) model in the event that their aircraft goes down unexpectedly.

“How to survive out in the wilderness away, how to evade capture to begin with, and how to resist after you get captured,” Pitcock said.

Iranian strikes put those skills to the test this week as two pilots ejected from a F-15 fighter jet that was shot down on Friday.

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“The canopy will blow off and they’ll eject from the aircraft before a rocket boost and then a parachute will open, and they’ll float down to the ground in their seat,” Pitcock said.

Pilots’ training goes beyond the sky, if that person successfully makes it to the ground, they will need to hide, find food and shelter. Pitcock said sending a signal to friendly forces can get tricky if Iranians intercept the signal and find their location.

“We’re very sensitive. Is that transmission going to give me away or is it going to alert the friendly forces that need to come get me so I can get out of here? You kind of wait for the right time and the right place. You can periodically do it, so you can send the signal or a message,” Pitcock said.

If a signal is successful, search and rescue teams will deploy to find them hopefully alive.

“There’s a long debrief that happens because we need that information to make sure it doesn’t happen again and then just learn about what did happen and what we can do to mitigate,” Pitcock said.

Tensions are high in the U.S. because this is the first military plane to be shot down in recent years, as tensions in the Middle East continue to rise.

“It will be an escalation, in my opinion, simply because when you lose, Americans are very sensitive to losing our own,” Pitcock said.

Iranian leaders said there is currently a $60,000 bounty for the American pilot.

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