President Trump’s audacious extraction of a US airman came agonisingly close to being a disaster and could have led to dozens of casualties on Iranian soil.
Two transport planes and one helicopter became stuck in the mud and unable to take off, leaving more military personnel stranded behind enemy lines as Basij fighters closed in on their botched rescue site.
The failed extraction could have cost dozens of lives, but three more transport planes arrived just in time, as the colonel and other forces were evacuated under gunfire from the advancing Iranians.
As they left, the Americans were forced to ‘blow up’ their own stricken planes and helicopter, to prevent them falling into the hands of the Iranian military.
It was a move likely to have cost millions of dollars to the US military and showed how close the mission came to failure.
Iranian media claimed they shot down the two transport planes, but provided no evidence to support the suggestion.
They later claimed that the US mission had failed and branded the rescue story as a ‘cover up’ to Trump’s heavy defeat.
However, Donald Trump branded the mission a huge success, saying it proved the American’s ‘dominance and superiority’ over the Iranian skies.
The C-130 transport planes were seen completely destroyed on the remote airfield inside Iran
Trump touted the success of the rescue mission on Saturday evening in a Truth social post
Injured after ejecting from an F-15 fighter jet which had been gunned down over Iran, stuck in a treacherous mountain range deep behind enemy lines and armed with just a handgun for protection, the situation could hardly have been more bleak for the stricken colonel.
Iranian forces were quickly made aware of his presence and offered a $60,000 reward for his capture, leading Basij militia to advance on the mountain roads below.
The brave colonel, injured but mobile, trekked 70 miles and climbed to 7,000 feet where he activated his emergency beacon and lay low for nearly two days, hoping for an unlikely rescue.
Meanwhile, the CIA confused the Iranians, spreading word that the colonel had already been located and buying themselves time to locate the airman.
His pilot had already been rescued just hours after the jet went down, but crew members in a Black Hawk helicopter had been injured after IRGC struck the aircraft during extraction.
The Americans used A-10 Warthogs to slow down the forces advancing on the colonel’s position, blocking roads around the extraction zone and striking communications towers and approaching vehicles. Iranian officials said at least four were killed in the strikes.
Iranian broadcasters then urged locals to seize the American, telling viewers: ‘If you capture the enemy pilot or pilots alive and hand them over to the police you will receive a precious prize.’
Fearing the colonel could be captured, the Americans then launched their daring rescue attempt and flew hundreds of special forces into Iranian airspace to rescue one man, at great risk to themselves.
Disaster struck when the C-130 planes became stranded, leaving dozens of US forces now also stuck behind enemy lines.
Escaping under gunfire proved how close the forces came to disaster.
They were forced to destroy their stranded aircraft as they escaped, leaving millions of dollars worth of American air power in pieces in the Iranian mountains.
President Trump celebrated ‘one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in U.S. History’, but victory had been snatched from the jaws of defeat.
The remaining three rescue planes flew out of Iran to Kuwait and the mission was completed just before midnight.
US forces involved in the rescue mission were forced to destroy two of their own planes after they became stuck in the remote Iranian airbase
Iranian state media released images of the search and rescue planes which it claimed it shot down, though the US military says it ‘blew up’ themselves
The two stranded aircraft were destroyed to prevent them from falling into IRGC hands, sources told The New York Times.
An MH-6 Little Bird helicopter was also destroyed after it was damaged before evacuation, according to reports.
Iranian sources said hundreds of soldiers and Basij fighters who tried to interfere with the rescue operation were ‘neutralised’ by American special forces.
Mr Trump said this was the first time in military memory that two U.S. Pilots have been rescued, separately, deep in Enemy Territory, as he defiantly said that no American warfighter would ever be left behind.
He said dozens of aircraft armed with ‘the most lethal weapons in the World’ were sent by the US military to retrieve him.
‘This brave warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour,’ Trump added in a Truth Social post.
The airman ejected from an F-15E fighter jet along with the aircraft’s pilot in the early hours of Friday, sparking a frantic two-day search operation that culminated in a fierce firefight.
Trump said the aircraft’s pilot was secretly rescued hours after the crash, but that operation was kept quiet to not ‘jeopardize our second rescue operation.’
He added that both operations were concluded ‘without a SINGLE American killed, or even wounded’, despite reports of injuries in the pilots rescue as well as the colonel’s own injuries.
Iranian media reported five people were killed in strikes during the US rescue operation.
The F-15E jet was downed on Friday soon after a US A-10 Warthog was also shot from the sky by Iranian forces in a chaotic day of fighting, marking the first US aircraft downed since the start of the conflict.
Pictured: The ejected seat from the F-15 fighter jet as published in Iranian media
The Iranian military previously shared footage appearing to show the F-15E fighter jet being blown out of the sky
A second US airman shot down over Iran has been rescued in a daring rescue mission following a fierce firefight with the IRGC, reports say. The wreckage of the pilot’s F-15E fighter jet is pictured
Iranian Revolutionary Guards took credit for the strike with gloating photos of the planes later shared on state media, accompanied by a taunting caption.
On Saturday, the official X account for the Iranian Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, released harrowing new images of the destroyed F-15E jet, accompanied by a taunting caption.
‘The stealth fighter that now has no escape but to lie under the feet of aerospace warriors,’ the embassy wrote.
‘That same stealth giant, for which they wove legends for years, is today a pile of scrap metal fallen to the ground – this is the very technology they claimed was invisible and untouchable,’ it added. ‘But now it has been seen and brought down.’
Each of the three photos showed what was left of the jet: an unrecognizable mass of burnt debris strewn across a wide, empty stretch of land.
On Friday, a video also showed Iranian bullets being fired at a Black Hawk helicopter which was thought to be involved in the search for the missing F-15 crew.
It came after Trump said earlier on Truth Social that US forces had ‘terminated’ several of Iran’s military leaders, sharing footage appearing to show an airstrike taking out top IRGC commanders.
Trump’s social media posts praising the rescue operations came hours after the White House furiously shut down rumors the president was hospitalized on Saturday.
The government said Trump not made public appearances in three days because he is focusing on the conflict with Iran.
Following the downing of two US aircrafts on Friday, Iran placed a $60,000 bounty on the heads of the US airmen, vowing to seek revenge on US military forces for the conflict.
Before the rescue mission took place, the official X account for the Iranian Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, released harrowing new images of the destroyed F-15E jet, accompanied by a taunting caption.
‘The stealth fighter that now has no escape but to lie under the feet of aerospace warriors,’ the embassy wrote.
‘That same stealth giant, for which they wove legends for years, is today a pile of scrap metal fallen to the ground – this is the very technology they claimed was invisible and untouchable,’ it added. ‘But now it has been seen and brought down.’
While the pilot was rescued quickly, the second member of the crew, a Weapons Systems Officer, used specialized survival techniques to evade capture long enough to be saved, Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin said in an X post on Saturday night.
The soldier used SERE – survival, evasion, resistance and escape – training to evade capture, hiking up an elevated ridge away from the wreckage and putting out an emergency beacon in hopes of being located.
Griffin said a number of Iranian military forces were killed and injured in the operation, but no US soldiers were killed.
Trump said earlier on Truth Social that US forces had ‘terminated’ several of Iran’s military leaders, sharing footage appearing to show an airstrike taking out top IRGC commanders
A US official told Fox News the mission was ‘very complex’, and involved several branches of the US military to find and rescue the airman.
During search and rescue operations on Friday, two rescue helicopters were hit by Iranian forces and crew members on board were injured.
As Iranian forces closed in on the stranded airman, footage circulating on social media appeared to show members of Iran’s Bakhtiari tribes in Khuzestan heading into the mountains, rifles in hand, to search for the American soldier.
Trump declined to comment on how he would respond if the airman were to have been harmed.
In a gloating online statement, Iranian parliamentary speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf taunted the US and Trump over his repeated claims of winning the war.
‘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?”’ Ghalibaf wrote.
The announcement of the rescue came as Iran launched missiles and drones at Israel and Kuwait early Sunday, and a day after Trump said the Islamic republic had 48 hours to cut a deal or face ‘all Hell’.
The President referred to an ultimatum he issued on March 26, saying: ‘Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT, Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign (sic) down on them.’
Iran’s central military command rejected the ultimatum, with General Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi saying Trump’s threat was a ‘helpless, nervous, unbalanced and stupid action’.
Echoing Trump’s language, he warned that ‘the gates of hell will open for you’.
Pakistan has offered to mediate efforts to end the war, and according to Iranian media Pakistan’s foreign minister and his Iranian counterpart spoke by phone on Saturday.
However there was no sign of a let up in the violence, and Kuwait and Israel said their air defences were responding Sunday to the latest attacks from Iran.
The United Arab Emirates also said its air defences were responding to missile attacks that Tehran said were targeting the country’s aluminium industries, while Bahrain officials reported a fire at a refinery ‘as a result of Iranian aggression’.
