President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Washington. (Alex Brandon/AP)
The U.S. military used 155 aircraft to rescue a missing crew member of a fighter jet that was shot down over Iran last week.
“I ordered the U.S. Armed Forces to do whatever was necessary to bring our brave warriors back home,” President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday during a news conference at the White House. “In the United States military we leave no American behind.”
The rescue followed a life-or-death race between U.S. and Iranian forces that stretched over two days to reach the injured airman, who is a weapons systems officer. Navy SEAL Team 6 commandos extracted the officer in a massive operation that involved hundreds of special operations troops and other military personnel, according to the New York Times.
No U.S. troops suffered casualties during the rescue mission, the president added.
After ejecting from the F-15E, the weapons systems officer — an Air Force colonel — hid in a mountain crevice, his location initially unknown to either Americans trying to rescue him or Iranians trying to capture him.
The F-15E fighter jet, referred to by call sign Dude 44, was downed Thursday night in southern Iran — the first confirmed shootdown of a U.S. warplane over Iran since the conflict began more than a month ago.
The colonel was “injured quite badly” and in an area teeming with terrorists from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Trump said.
One of the two crew members, the pilot, aboard the aircraft was rescued earlier by U.S. forces; the search for the other continued into a second day.
The U.S. deployed 21 planes to rescue the pilot. The second mission involved 155 aircraft, including four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers and 13 rescue aircraft.
After the airman was located, two transport planes sent to extract U.S. personnel became disabled at a remote Iranian air base, the Times reported. Commanders flew in three replacement aircraft and destroyed the disabled planes to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands.
“This was an incredibly dangerous mission,” said Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
During the search for the first crew member, an A-10 Warthog combat plane flying as part of a “sandy mission” was struck by Iranian fire, though the pilot was able to navigate the damaged plane to Kuwaiti airspace before ejecting and being rescued.
“A sandy has one mission,” Caine said, “get to the survivor, bring the rescue force forward, and put themselves between that survivor on the ground and the enemy.”
After rescuing the pilot, HH-60 Jolly Green II helicopters were “engaged by every single person in Iran who had a small-arms weapon, and one of the aircraft, the trailing aircraft, took several hits,” he said. The crew members received minor injuries.
Meanwhile, the second crew member was injured and “actively evading enemy forces,” Caine said. “And thanks to our interagency partners, we were able to get eyes on his location and positively ID him.”
The CIA initiated a deception campaign to try to confuse Iranian forces, and convince them the airman had already been rescued and was moving out of the country in a ground convoy, a senior administration official told the Times.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the rescue was a “no fail mission.” He said the CIA found the airman on Saturday morning buried in a mountain crevice “still invincible to the enemy.”
The information was relayed to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump, and the operation quickly moved into execution phase.
“Following the successful exfiltration on Saturday night, our intelligence reflects that the Iranians were embarrassed and ultimately humiliated by the success of this audacious rescue mission,” Ratcliffe said.
Hegseth said U.S. forces flew 14 hours, seven hours during the day and seven hours at night, to recover the crew members.
Caine praised the crew of the F-15 and all of the assets that participated in the rescue.
“The courage demonstrated by both the pilot and the weapons systems officer, while isolated, and them evading the enemy, cannot be overstated,” Caine said. “Their grit and warfighting tenacity is a direct result of the absolute trust they have in our rescue forces, their training and their will to survive and return. They always knew we would be ordered to go get them, and they always knew we would be coming to get them.”
The developments have raised new questions about the extent to which the U.S. has established air superiority over Iran, despite weeks of U.S. and Israeli strikes that have degraded its air defenses.
Since the war began on Feb. 28, 13 American personnel have died and at least 365 have been wounded, according to Defense Manpower Data Center figures.
Trump on Wednesday, during his first prime-time address since the launch of Operation Epic Fury, said “strategic operations are nearing completion.” The president had been saying U.S. forces will wrap up in two to three weeks.
Trump has signaled for weeks that he is prepared to expand U.S. strikes against Iran to power plants and bridges if it does not open the Strait of Hormuz.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the f------ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” the president posted Easter morning on Truth Social.
On Monday, Trump said Iran is negotiating “in good faith” but warned that, if Iran does not agree to the deadline: “The entire country could be taken out in one night, and that night might be (Tuesday) night.”
“Very little is off limits. We have a plan because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o’clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again,” Trump said. “We don’t want that to happen. The last thing we want to do is start with power plants … and bridges.”
Last Tuesday, after weeks of grumbling about NATO allies’ reluctance to send forces to Iran, the president urged on Truth Social that they “build some delayed courage” and “go get your own oil!”
“I’m very disappointed in NATO. I think it’s a mark on NATO that will never disappear,” the president said ahead of NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s visit to Washington on Wednesday.
