Iran, US race to find crew member of crashed American fighter jet

TEHRAN: Iranian and American forces raced each other Saturday to recover a crew member of the first US fighter jet to go down inside Iran since the start of the war.

Tehran said it had shot down the F-15 warplane, while US media reported United States special forces had rescued one of its two crew members, with the other still missing.

Iran’s military also said it downed a US A-10 ground attack aircraft in the Gulf, with US media saying the pilot was rescued.

The war erupted more than a month ago with US-Israeli strikes on Iran that killed supreme leader Ali Khamenei, triggering retaliation that spread the conflict throughout the Middle East, convulsing the global economy and impacting millions of people worldwide.

US Central Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the loss of the F-15, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “The president has been briefed.”

President Donald Trump told NBC the F-15 loss would not affect negotiations with Iran, saying: “No, not at all. No, it’s war.”

‘Valuable reward’

A spokesperson for the Iranian military’s central operational command said “an American hostile fighter jet in central Iranian airspace was struck and destroyed by the IRGC Aerospace Force’s advanced air defence system”.

“The jet was completely obliterated, and further searches are ongoing.”

An Iranian television reporter on a local official channel said anyone who captured a crew member alive would “receive a valuable reward”.

The US military has announced the loss of several aircraft during Iran operations, including a tanker that crashed in Iraq and three F-15s shot down by Kuwaiti friendly fire.

Retired US brigadier general Houston Cantwell, who has 400 hours of combat flight experience, said a pilot’s training would likely kick in before he or she parachutes to the ground.

“My priority would be, first of all, concealment, because I don’t want to be captured,” he told AFP.

Mohammad Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, mocked the Trump administration.

He wrote on X: “After defeating Iran 37 times in a row, this brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded from ‘regime change’ to ‘Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?’

“Wow. What incredible progress. Absolute geniuses.”

Fresh strikes

Fresh strikes were aimed at Israel, Iran and Lebanon.

On Saturday several blasts were heard coming from Tehran’s north, an AFP journalist said.

Strikes by all sides have increasingly targeted economic and industrial sites, raising fears of wider disruption to global energy supplies.

In the area around a bridge west of Tehran that was targeted by the United States, an AFP reporter saw a villa and residential buildings with blown-out windows, but no military installations.

According to the martyrs’ foundation of Alborz province, cited by the official IRNA agency, the attack killed 13 civilians and wounded dozens.

Writing in the US journal Foreign Affairs, Iran’s former foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said Tehran should make a deal with Washington to end the war by offering to curb its nuclear programme and reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for sanctions relief.

Iran has virtually blocked the key waterway since the war began, where one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas normally passes.

Iranian military spokesperson Ebrahim Zolfaghari warned that Iran would increase its own attacks on energy sites in the region in response to threats from Trump of attacks on infrastructure.

A drone attack on a refinery owned by Kuwait’s national oil company on Friday sparked fires, while a separate Iranian attack damaged a power and desalination complex.

Gulf states once seen as safe havens are now under threat, accused by Iran of serving as launchpads for US strikes.

Dubai’s media office said authorities there responded to “a minor incident caused by debris from an aerial interception” that fell on a building around the marina area.

No injuries were reported, it said.