The rescue of two U.S. airmen after their F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down deep inside Iran is being described as a high-risk operation involving large numbers of aircraft, extensive personnel and intelligence tradecraft, President Donald Trump and senior defense officials said Monday.
Speaking at a “valedictory news conference” at the White House, Trump said the U.S. relied on “dozens of aircraft, hundreds of personnel, secret CIA technology and a dose of subterfuge” to retrieve the crew, with the mission unfolding across multiple days for the second aviator. Trump said U.S. forces rescued the pilot within hours of the aircraft going down late Thursday, after confirming his location and sending helicopters, midair refuelers and fighter aircraft deep into Iran.
Trump said the weapons systems officer aboard the downed jet was rescued nearly two days later. He described the effort as particularly difficult because the aviator, who was flying under the call sign Dude-44 Alpha for the pilot and Dude-44 Bravo for the second aviator, had to move away from the crash area and survive long enough for U.S. forces to find and extract him.
The search and rescue operation began in daylight over Iran, Trump said, with helicopters and other aircraft flying low for seven hours and at times facing very, very heavy enemy fire. He said the A-10 Warthog served as the primary attack aircraft keeping contact with the downed F-15 pilot on the ground, and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described what happened to the A-10 during that engagement.
Caine said the A-10 was hit by enemy fire while engaging Iranian forces, and he told reporters the aircraft “was ‘not landable.’” Caine said the pilot continued fighting before flying to a friendly country and ejecting, and he said the pilot was quickly rescued and is “doing fine.” Caine also said that after rescuing the F-15 pilot, HH-60 Jolly Green II helicopters were “engaged by every single person in Iran who had a small-arms weapon,” and that a trailing aircraft took several hits, though he said the crew members received minor injuries and were going to be OK.
For the second aviator, U.S. officials said the operation relied on intelligence collection and deception designed to disrupt Iranian efforts to locate him. Trump said that during the search, an anchor on a channel affiliated with Iranian state television urged residents in the mountainous region of southwest Iran where the fighter jet went down to turn over any “enemy pilot” to police and promised a reward for anyone who did.
Trump said the weapons systems officer “bleeding profusely” managed to climb mountainous terrain and call for help Saturday using “a very sophisticated beeper-type apparatus.” He said the CIA used exquisite technologies to locate the aviator and mounted a deception operation to mislead Iranian efforts to find him, and Ratcliffe compared the search to “hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert.”
Trump said intelligence officials noticed movement in the dead of night while U.S. forces were surveilling the mountainous area. He said officials kept a camera on the moving object for 45 minutes and when it was no longer moving, they thought they might have it wrong, before the object moved again, prompting them to conclude it was “the head of a human being.” In Trump’s telling, officials then determined they “have him” after observing the aviator stand up and move again.
Ratcliffe and Trump also described the effort to reach the aviator after he had hidden in the mountains, including by using drones and strike aircraft. Trump said cargo planes flew in and assembled helicopters near the patch of mountains where the downed airman was concealing himself inside a cave or crevice, but he said the cargo planes were too weighed down by equipment and personnel to take off from the sandy terrain.
Trump said U.S. rescuers instead used three “lighter, faster aircraft” to extract the aviator and that the equipment on the ground was blown up to keep it out of Iranian hands. He said many of the dozens of aircraft involved in the broader operation were deployed for deception, with U.S. forces trying to have Iran think the downed crew was in a different location.
In Washington, Trump said, national security officials coordinated on a call and kept the phone line open for nearly two days straight. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, “From the moment our pilots went down, our mission was unblinking,” and added, “The call never dropped. The meeting never stopped, the planning never ceased.”
As Trump detailed parts of the mission, the account also highlighted tensions between what he was willing to reveal and what his aides wanted protected. At one point, he asked Gen. Caine how many men were sent “altogether, approximately,” and Caine replied, “Uhhh, I’d love to keep that a secret, Mr. President.” Trump then said, “OK, well, we are,” and continued, “But I will tell you — the number, I’ll keep it a secret, but it was hundreds.”
The Associated Press reported the rescue details using statements made Monday by Trump and senior officials, with reporting contributions from Cooper from Phoenix and Amiri from New York.