A U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle assigned to the 494th Fighter Squadron, 48th Fighter Wing out of RAF Lakenheath, Suffolk, England, was shot down over southwestern Iran’s Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province on Friday, April 3, 2026. The jet — call sign Dude 44 — went down during a deep strike mission under Operation Epic Fury. Both crew members ejected, activated their Combat Survivor Evader Locator beacons, and made contact with U.S. forces via encrypted radio. Both are safe. It’s the first American fighter lost in combat since an A-10 Thunderbolt II went down during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The Shootdown
The F-15E was struck at approximately 4:40 a.m. local time. President Trump described the weapon as a “hand-held shoulder missile — heat-seeking missile,” suggesting engine damage rather than a direct kill caused the jet to go down. Defense analysts have floated several candidates: the Iranian Bavar-373, the Russian S-300, and the 9K333 Verba shoulder-fired infrared-homing system. ABC News reported Iranian forces may have used a passive infrared detection system — one that emits no radar signal and is invisible to conventional radar warning receivers, making it extremely difficult to counter with standard electronic jamming.
Iran’s IRGC-linked Nour News claimed the jet was downed by “a new advanced air defense system of the IRGC Aerospace Force.” That claim fits a pattern. CENTCOM had already rebutted at least six similar Iranian claims in the days prior, including a video the IRGC released on April 2 falsely claiming the shootdown of an F-15 over Qeshm Island.
First Rescue — The Pilot
The pilot, call sign Dude 44A, was recovered quickly. A combat search-and-rescue task force entered Iranian airspace in broad daylight — Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine described the package: A-10 Thunderbolts, an HC-130J Combat King tanker, and two HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopters, the Air Force’s newest CSAR platform, which only entered service in 2022. One of the HH-60Ws took ground fire during the extraction. Several crew members were wounded, but the helicopter flew the pilot out of Iran. Separately, an A-10 providing close air support was hit — it made it to Kuwaiti airspace, and its pilot ejected safely over friendly territory after determining the jet was not landable. Twenty-one aircraft supported the first rescue.
The WSO’s 24 Hours on a 7,000-Foot Ridge
The weapons systems officer — call sign Dude 44B, identified by Trump as a “highly respected Colonel” — had a harder road. He landed with an ankle injury and moved southeast from the crash site on foot, evading Iranian search parties across the Zagros Mountains before finding a crevice along a 7,000-foot ridgeline near Kolah Ghazi National Park and going to ground. He restricted his CSEL beacon transmissions deliberately, limiting the signal to avoid Iranian detection. When he finally keyed his radio, his message was four words.
“God is good.” — Dude 44B, WSO, via encrypted radio from his hide site in the Zagros Mountains
While he waited, the CIA ran a simultaneous disinformation campaign inside Iran — seeding reporting that the airman had already been found and was being moved overland, buying the rescue force critical time. Langley also used what officials described as unconventional assisted recovery, contacting Iranian civilians willing to help.
The Second Rescue — 155 Aircraft Deep Into Iran
Saturday night, U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command C-130s landed a special operations ground force on an abandoned agricultural airstrip — 3,900 feet long, 14 miles north of Shahreza City in Isfahan Province — to establish a Forward Arming and Refueling Point for three MH-6 Little Bird helicopters. SEAL Team Six operators were airdropped into the recovery zone. B-1B Lancers dropped approximately 100 two-thousand-pound bombs on roads, IRGC garrisons, and other targets to suppress Iranian forces. When two C-130s became disabled on the improvised strip, replacement aircraft were flown in and the disabled planes were destroyed on the ground to prevent capture.
One MH-6 Little Bird flew directly to the mountain ridge and pulled the Colonel out. The total rescue fleet for the second mission: 155 aircraft — four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 tankers, and 13 rescue aircraft.
“Shot down on a Friday — Good Friday — 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.” — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
Trump announced the rescue on Truth Social just after midnight on April 5: “WE GOT HIM!” At a White House press conference the following day — alongside Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Gen. Caine — the president called it “one of the largest, most complex, most harrowing combat search and rescue missions ever attempted by the military.”
What This Means
The loss of Dude 44 — a 494th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron jet deployed from Lakenheath to Jordan — is the first confirmed combat loss of an American fighter in 23 years. Iran now has physical wreckage of a frontline U.S. strike platform, a significant intelligence windfall. The weapon or weapons that brought it down remain officially unconfirmed, and that answer will drive near-term changes to U.S. electronic warfare posture and strike routing over Iranian airspace. We’ll continue to monitor developments as Operation Epic Fury proceeds.
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