Just 48 hours after former President Donald Trump asserted that Iran no longer posed a military threat and that the country’s entire air defense network had been completely destroyed, Iranian military forces carried out a stunning strike that downed two manned U.S. military aircraft on Friday, multiple international news outlets have confirmed.
Citing an Israeli government official and a second anonymous source with direct knowledge of the incident, Axios first broke the news Friday afternoon that an F-15E Strike Eagle, one of the U.S. Air Force’s primary fighter-attack jets, was hit by Iranian anti-aircraft fire, forcing both crew members to eject over Iranian territory. This strike marks the first documented incident of a manned U.S. aircraft being shot down inside Iranian borders since the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran launched on February 28.
As of Friday evening, one of the F-15E crew members had been recovered by U.S. special operations forces, though The Washington Post reports that details of his medical condition remain undisclosed. Search operations are still intensifying across the region to locate the second missing crew member.
Shortly after Axios’ initial report, The Intercept published confirmation that a second U.S. aircraft, an A-10 Warthog ground-attack jet, crashed near the strategic Strait of Hormuz around the same time as the F-15E incident. Matching the pattern of the first crash, one crew member from the A-10 has been recovered, while the second remains unaccounted for.
Al Jazeera later added that a U.S. Black Hawk search-and-rescue helicopter was also struck by an Iranian projectile while participating in the operation to locate missing pilots. The helicopter was able to exit Iranian airspace before making a safe landing outside Iranian territory, with no reported casualties on board.
Iran has officially claimed responsibility for downing the F-15E, with Tasnim News Agency — the semiofficial media outlet of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — releasing a formal statement confirming the strike. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has a history of rejecting previous Iranian claims of downing U.S. aircraft, including a separate claim made near the Strait of Hormuz just one day prior on Thursday. However, CENTCOM has not issued any denial regarding Friday’s incidents, and has publicly confirmed that the F-15E was indeed lost.
Friday’s development directly contradicts sweeping claims Trump made during a national televised address just this past Wednesday. During the speech, Trump declared that five weeks of intense U.S. bombing campaigns had “eviscerated” Iran’s military capabilities, and that the country was “essentially really no longer a threat” to regional or American interests. He went further to claim that Iran’s entire air defense infrastructure had been wiped out, saying, “They have no anti-aircraft equipment. Their radar is 100% annihilated. We are unstoppable.”
Just one week prior, Trump claimed that Iran’s leadership was desperate to negotiate a peace deal because it “can’t do a thing” to defend itself against U.S. airstrikes. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed this narrative, repeatedly touting unchallenged U.S. “air superiority” over the region.
Even before Friday’s downing of the two jets, these rosy assessments from the White House were already called into question. A Thursday report from CNN cited internal U.S. intelligence findings that roughly half of Iran’s missile launchers remain fully operational, and that the country still retains around 50% of its drone fleet. One senior source told CNN that Iran remains “very much poised to wreak absolute havoc throughout the entire region.”
Military analysts have warned that any missing crew members captured by Iranian forces could become critical bargaining chips for Tehran in future negotiations with Washington. Iranian officials have already seized on the incident to mock the Trump administration’s claims. Mohammad Ghalibaf, speaker of Iran’s Parliament, posted a scathing rebuke on social media following news of the downing. “After defeating Iran 37 times in a row,” Ghalibaf wrote, “this brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded from ‘regime change’ to ‘Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?’”
The incident also comes amid growing controversy over casualty transparency in the conflict. An analysis published by The Intercept earlier this week found that at least 15 American troops have been killed in the region since the campaign began, with more than 520 others injured. CENTCOM has been accused of covering up the true scope of U.S. casualties after the command released incomplete, outdated casualty figures to reporters and repeatedly declined to share full, updated totals.