‘Miraculous’: US rescues second pilot downed in Iran, Trump confirms

The United States has rescued the second crew member of a US F-15 jet shot down, President Donald Trump confirms, as Iran claims another US aircraft involved in the rescue has been downed in the province of Isfahan.

“This brave Warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies,” Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social on Sunday. “He sustained injuries, but he will be just fine.”

The airman, who Trump said held the rank of colonel, was the second member of a two-person crew of an F-15 that Iran said on Friday had been brought down by its air defences.

“This miraculous search and rescue operation comes in addition to a successful rescue of another brave pilot yesterday, which we did not confirm because we did not want to jeopardise our second rescue operation.”

The rescue resolves a crisis for the White House with the war on Iran in its sixth week.

The first member of the crew had been rescued, triggering a high-stakes search for the remaining airman by both Iran and the US.

Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said there had been no confirmation or denial from the Iranians on the pilot’s rescue.

“Over the past 24 hours, we have witnessed continuous air strikes on the location where the fighter jet was downed,” he said.

Another plane down?

Separately on Sunday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it shot down a US aircraft that was looking for the missing officer in the southern province of Isfahan, according to Iran’s Fars news agency.

Fars posted a photo on its Telegram channel, showing thick smoke rising from a field, and said: “Trump’s desperate attempt to cover up a huge defeat.”

The plane was a C-130 class aircraft, it said, and was destroyed by a police commando unit called the Faraj Rangers.

The high-stakes US rescue effort, which involved dozens of military aircraft, encountered fierce resistance from Iran.

Before Trump’s confirmation, Al Jazeera’s Jon Hendren, reporting from Washington, DC, quoted a US official as saying that US forces had encircled and were moving in on the downed airman, who had managed to avoid Iranian units for about two days.

“And then a firefight broke out. This happened in daylight,” Hendren reported. “Generally, special operations troops would go in for a rescue operation like that, and they would try to extract someone very quickly in the darkness. This went on for hours, we were told.”

In a separate incident, an A-10 Warthog fighter crashed after being hit over Kuwait, with the pilot ejecting, officials said. The degree of any injuries among the aircraft crew remained unclear.

Still, Trump was triumphant.

“The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations, without a single American killed, or even wounded, just proves once again that we have achieved overwhelming air dominance and superiority over the Iranian skies,” he said in his statement.