The United States announced early on Sunday that a US military special operation team had penetrated a hostile area in Iran and successfully rescued the missing F-15E fighter jet crew members. The entire rescue operation was intense and thrilling, with the US employing various tactics, including a strategic “deception operation” conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) against the enemy. This rescue mission once again showcased the high level of coordination among the elite combat forces of the US military.
On Friday, an American F-15E fighter jet was shot down in Iranian airspace, with two crew members ejecting to safety. One pilot was rescued that day, while the other crew member remained missing. The US military immediately launched a search and rescue operation. President Trump subsequently suspended some other significant military operations in Iran to prioritize the rescue effort, dispatching hundreds of Special Forces personnel to participate in the search, focusing on locating the trapped crew member’s beacon.
To the surprise of many, amidst the enemy’s attempts to attack the US rescue team, the US not only successfully retrieved their comrade but also managed the entire rescue operation without any casualties among their personnel.
The missing crew member is a colonel who demonstrated remarkable survival skills in the hostile territory of Iran. According to Fox News, after ejecting to safety earlier on Friday, the colonel climbed thousands of feet up a mountain ridge and remained hidden there for nearly 48 hours.
A US government official and a White House official confirmed to CBS that there was an exchange of gunfire with the Iranian military as US forces approached the trapped crew member. Fortunately, there were no casualties among US personnel during the rescue operation, and the rescued crew member has been transported to Kuwait for medical treatment.
The officials also disclosed that the US military used bombs and firepower during this intense military operation to prevent the Iranian forces from approaching the hiding place of the missing officer, who only had a handgun for self-defense while trapped.
CBS learned that during the rescue operation, two US transport planes responsible for evacuating rescue personnel were unable to take off from a remote base within Iran. Officials indicated that to prevent capture by the enemy, these two planes were destroyed by the US military, while the rescue personnel left on three other aircraft brought in for support.
The officials revealed that the three rescue planes flew from Iran to Kuwait, with minimal distance between them. The mission was completed before midnight on Saturday, with all US personnel safely withdrawn from enemy airspace.
According to The Wall Street Journal, an informed source revealed that two US special operations aircraft were ultimately destroyed on the ground in Iran during the rescue operation.
The MC-130J is a specialized US military aircraft used for conducting secretive infiltration missions and evacuating troops from behind enemy lines. The official did not explain why the aircraft encountered difficulties during the rescue operation but mentioned that it was necessary to destroy it in the end.
Furthermore, one of the aircraft got stuck in a quagmire, leading to its destruction to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.
According to Fox News, Israel also participated in the operation to rescue an American pilot in Iran. It was reported that Israeli officials shared relevant information with the US during the rescue operation.
Fox News reported that the mission involved elite special forces from various branches of the US military and a variety of military aircraft. Several hundred US military personnel were involved.
“This is straight out of a movie,” said Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin. “When the whole story finally unfolds, I think we will all be shocked.”
She mentioned that in terms of the complexity of the mission, successful rescue, and the scale of personnel and aircraft involved, she had never witnessed a comparable operation before.
“This is definitely an operation that will go down in history,” she added.
Alex Plitsas, a national security analyst at CNN and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, stated that the operation to rescue the F-15 fighter jet crew members was one of the most thrilling in US military history because of the deep penetration into enemy territory. He emphasized that this successful rescue operation also prevented a US service member from becoming a “bargaining chip” for the Iranian regime.
President Trump and his team closely monitored the rescue process at the White House. Trump announced the successful rescue early on Sunday, noting that for the first time in US military history, they had rescued two American pilots deep within enemy territory, with no US casualties throughout the operation.
Amber Smith, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and pilot, told Fox News that the US elite combat search and rescue teams are trained to carry out such high-risk missions.
Smith explained that both pilots and rescue teams undergo rigorous survival, evasion, resistance, and escape training to assist them in operating on hostile territories and avoiding capture. Due to factors such as time delays and wind direction, ejected crew members often become scattered, with the wind potentially blowing them to different ground locations.
Analysts believe that while combat search and rescue is an extremely dangerous mission, it also provides rare real-world experience, demonstrating the astounding capabilities of the US military in responding to various combat scenarios to America’s adversaries.