Shooting down U.S. jets in Iran is exceedingly rare, AP says
Iran shot down two American military jets in the Iran war in incidents reported to have occurred Friday, marking what the Associated Press described as an exceedingly rare assault for the United States. The AP said the last time a U.S. warplane was shot down by enemy fire in combat was in 2003, during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The AP also reported the episode came about five weeks after the start of U.S. and Israeli strikes that targeted Iran, during a period when President Donald Trump said earlier that Tehran’s ability to launch missiles and drones was “dramatically curtailed.”
The AP said Iranian forces shot down a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle, with U.S. officials reporting that one service member was rescued while the search continued for a second airman. It also reported that Iranian state media said a U.S. A-10 attack aircraft crashed after being hit by Iranian defense forces.
The AP said retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Houston Cantwell, a former F-16 fighter pilot, called the timing “an absolute miracle,” adding that U.S. forces were flying combat missions while being shot at “every day.” Cantwell said the gap since 2003 reflected the different context of earlier U.S. operations, when U.S. forces largely fought insurgents without the same anti-aircraft capabilities.
Experts and analysts told the AP that a key factor in Iran’s ability to hit aircraft is that “a disabled air defense system is not a destroyed air defense system,” a point made by Behnam Ben Taleblu, Iran program senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Taleblu said U.S. aircraft have been flying missions at lower altitudes during the conflict, which can increase vulnerability to missiles. He said it was possible Iran used a surface-to-air missile, but he said a portable, shoulder-fired missile was more likely because it is harder to detect.
Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and defense adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed with the AP’s reporting that a shoulder-fired missile was likely used against the fighter jet. Cancian also told the AP that, despite the rarity of the loss, the American air war against Iran had been a “tremendous success,” while also drawing a distinction between battlefield outcomes and domestic politics. He said the U.S. public had become “accustomed to fighting bloodless wars,” and that because of that, “to them, any loss is unacceptable.”
The AP reported that the U.S. military had been flying large numbers of missions and striking large numbers of targets during the Iran war. In a statement Wednesday, U.S. Central Command said American forces had flown more than 13,000 missions and struck more than 12,300 targets.
The AP also described how pilots train for situations when aircraft are hit in high-threat environments. Cantwell said aviators’ blood pressure rises and they become highly alert to incoming missiles, which may be either infrared- or radar-guided and therefore require different evasive tactics. He said aircrews are trained on what to do if they must eject, including checking for wounds after a violent ejection and communicating their location so rescuers can find them, while noting that enemies may try to intercept or even spoof those communications.
The AP said Friday’s incidents were not the first time U.S. crews lost aircraft in or near Iran. It reported that a helicopter and airplane exploded in 1980 during an aborted mission to rescue hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, citing the Air Force Historical Support Division’s account of the mission’s setbacks and a midair collision involving rotor blades and a fuel-laden aircraft. The AP also noted that more U.S. helicopters have been shot down in recent decades, including a MH-47 Army Chinook helicopter hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in Afghanistan in 2005, where 16 people were killed.
Cantwell told the AP that helicopters can be more at risk because “the lower and the slower, the more susceptible you are.” He described the rescue efforts underway after the Friday losses as “such a brave and honorable act,” while U.S. officials continued to search for a second missing service member.