A KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq on Thursday while supporting U.S. operations against Iran, and the U.S. military said Friday that all six crew members aboard the aircraft are dead. U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, said the aircraft was involved in an unspecified incident involving two aircraft in “friendly airspace.” Central Command said the other plane landed safely.
The crash added to a growing death toll for American service members tied to “Operation Epic Fury,” with the Pentagon previously saying earlier this week that about 140 U.S. service members were injured, including eight severely. The Associated Press said the death count connected to the operation reached at least 13, with seven others killed in combat.
Central Command’s account came as U.S. officials addressed the developing incident during a news conference at the Pentagon on Friday morning. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine said the crash occurred “over friendly territory in western Iraq, while the crew was on a combat mission” and reiterated that hostile or friendly fire was not the cause, according to the Associated Press. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the crew were heroes, describing the chaos of war as “War is hell. War is chaos,” while referring to the KC-135 tanker crash.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, writing on social media, said three of the six crew members were from his state and deployed with the Ohio Air National Guard’s 121st Air Refueling Wing. DeWine did not name the crew members in his post, and he offered condolences to their families.
The AP report also described how an Israeli official said one of the involved aircraft landed safely. Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., wrote on X that the other plane landed safely in Israel, following a separate U.S. official account provided to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss the developing situation. A U.S. official also told the AP that the other plane involved was also a KC-135, in the same friendly-airspace scenario.
A security expert at South Korea’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies, Yang Uk, said it would be rare for a refueling tanker to be downed by enemy fire because tanker operations are usually conducted in the rear of combat zones. Yang cited the prior example of a misidentification incident in which three U.S. F-15E fighter jets were mistakenly downed by friendly Kuwaiti fire; in that earlier case, the six crew members ejected safely.
The AP report laid out background on the KC-135 Stratotanker, describing it as a U.S. Air Force aircraft used to refuel other planes in midair. It also can transport wounded personnel during aeromedical evacuations and conduct surveillance missions, according to military experts cited by AP. The report said the KC-135 is based on the Boeing 707 passenger plane and that the “last of these planes were produced in the 1960s,” while the Air Force plans to gradually phase it out as newer KC-46A Pegasus tankers enter service.
The report also said that, according to the Congressional Research Service, the Air Force had 376 KC-135s last year: 151 on active duty, 163 in the Air National Guard and 62 in the Air Force Reserve. It described a basic KC-135 crew as including a pilot, co-pilot and boom operator, with additional medical personnel added for evacuation missions.
In a section focused on aviation safety and equipment, the AP report said the KC-135 has been involved in several fatal accidents, including a crash in Kyrgyzstan on May 3, 2013, in which the crew experienced problems with the plane’s rudder, the tail broke away and the aircraft exploded midair. The report said another serious collision involved a B-52 bomber carrying nuclear bombs striking a tanker near Palomares, Spain, in 1966.
AP also reported that safety experts raised questions about whether the particular Iraq-bound KC-135 was carrying parachutes, noting that the Kyrgyzstan investigation found the plane involved was not equipped with parachutes. Alan Diehl, a former investigator for the Air Force Safety Center who examined KC-135 mishaps, told AP that the “important question is whether this KC-135 was carrying any parachutes,” and said it remained unclear whether parachutes would have helped over Iraq. Diehl said the collision’s circumstances and the second plane landing safely suggested the incident may not have been catastrophic, but the military said it would not provide more than that the cause was under investigation.