Iran shoots down two U.S. jets, first enemy-fired loss in over 20 years

Iran shooting down U.S. military jets is an exceedingly rare event in the modern conflict era, U.S. officials said, highlighting how Iran’s air-defense capabilities still pose a direct threat to American aircraft even after sustained U.S. and Israeli airstrikes. The incident involved the downing of an F-15E Strike Eagle on Friday, with U.S. officials saying one service member was rescued and a search remained underway for a second, according to the Associated Press.

The attacks came about five weeks after U.S. and Israeli strikes first pounded Iran, a period in which President Donald Trump said Tehran’s “ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed,” the AP reported. In Trump’s comments earlier in the conflict, he also asserted Iran’s capabilities had been “completely decimated,” the AP said, framing the jets’ downing as evidence of Iran’s continued ability to hit back.

In addition to the F-15E loss, Iranian state media said a U.S. A-10 attack aircraft crashed after being hit by Iranian defense forces, the AP reported. The AP also said the event represented the first time a U.S. warplane was shot down by enemy fire in combat in more than 20 years, contrasting it with prior combat losses that occurred in the early Iraq war era.

The AP quoted retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Houston Cantwell, a former F-16 pilot, saying the last time a U.S. warplane was shot down by enemy fire in combat was an A-10 Thunderbolt II during the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Cantwell said the earlier context differed because the United States “had largely been fighting insurgents who didn’t have the same anti-aircraft capabilities,” and he pointed to the F-15E episode as a sign of the operational environment for American pilots over Iran.

Cantwell said it was “an absolute miracle” that the loss did not happen sooner, adding, “We’re flying combat missions here, they are being shot at every day.” He is now a senior resident fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, the AP reported, and the AP used his comments to emphasize that the absence of similar losses for more than two decades did not mean missions were risk-free.

Other experts cited by the AP described what may have allowed Iran to reach U.S. aircraft despite claims of degraded air-defense capacity. Behnam Ben Taleblu, Iran program senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the distinction remains between air superiority and air supremacy and argued that “A disabled air defense system is not a destroyed air defense system,” saying U.S. forces “shouldn’t be shocked that they’re still fighting.”

Taleblu told the AP that American planes may have flown at lower altitudes, making them more vulnerable to Iran’s missiles. He said it was possible Iran used a surface-to-air missile to hit the F-15, but he argued it was more likely a portable, shoulder-fired missile was used, noting that those are “much harder to detect” and that Iran is “weak but still lethal,” the AP reported.

The AP also quoted Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior defense adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, saying a shoulder-fired missile was likely used against the fighter jet. Cancian, according to the AP, said the American air war against Iran had been a “tremendous success” while describing the political dimension of risk: “But then there’s the political side — you have a American public that is accustomed to fighting bloodless wars,” he said, adding that “to them, any loss is unacceptable.”

The AP further described the training and recovery procedures for pilots when aircraft are hit in high-threat environments. Cantwell said an aviator’s blood pressure goes up in missions where missiles are incoming and that pilots become highly alert to infrared- or radar-guided threats, depending on the missile type. He said pilots are trained on what to do if they need to eject and emphasized that aircrew learn how to check for wounds after a violent ejection and how they will communicate their location to help rescuers find them.

At the same time, Cantwell said the enemy may try to intercept communications or spoof locations, the AP reported. The AP also noted that helicopters and other non-jet aircraft have been lost during the Iran war context in the past, including a helicopter and airplane explosion in 1980 during an aborted hostage-rescue mission at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, according to the Air Force Historical Support Division, and additional losses of helicopters in later conflicts.

Cantwell said helicopters are generally more at risk because “the lower and the slower, the more susceptible you are,” as quoted by the AP. The AP reported that in describing the rescue missions that followed the F-15E downing, Cantwell said those going out to search and recover were doing “such a brave and honorable act,” likely referring to rescue operations in higher-risk aircraft such as helicopters.