TEHRAN / WASHINGTON D.C. — In what President Donald Trump has called “one of the most daring search-and-rescue operations in U.S. history,” American special operations forces successfully extracted the second crew member of a downed F-15E Strike Eagle from the treacherous mountains of southwest Iran early Sunday morning. The officer, identified as a highly respected colonel and the aircraft’s Weapons Systems Officer (WSO), had been evading capture for nearly 36 hours following the shoot-down of his jet on April 3.
The extraction was the culmination of a massive, high-stakes military effort that involved dozens of aircraft and a sophisticated “deception campaign” orchestrated by the CIA. According to senior administration officials, the intelligence agency spread misinformation within Iran suggesting that the colonel had already been found and moved overland, successfully confusing Iranian search parties. This window allowed U.S. commandos to pinpoint the airman’s actual location after he had scaled a 7,000-foot ridge to evade thermal tracking and ground patrols.
The final phase of the mission was far from quiet. As special forces moved in for the extraction, a “massive firefight” erupted at the landing site. U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drones provided overhead cover, reportedly striking Iranian threats that closed within three kilometers of the colonel’s position. While the extraction team and the colonel were under heavy fire, the military confirmed that all American personnel involved in the operation returned safely, though the colonel is being treated for injuries sustained during his time behind enemy lines.
President Trump took to social media shortly after midnight to announce the success, exclaiming, “WE GOT HIM!” In his statement, the President praised the “lethal precision” of the U.S. military and emphasized that the operation was conducted without a single American fatality. He noted that the colonel was “hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour,” before being snatched from the “crevices of the mountains” in a raid seldom attempted due to the extreme risk to equipment and personnel.
The operation did not come without material cost. To prevent sensitive technology from falling into enemy hands, U.S. forces intentionally destroyed several of their own aircraft at a forward landing site inside Iranian territory. Reports indicate that two MC-130J Air Force Special Operations planes and multiple MH-6 “Little Bird” helicopters were scuttled by the rescue teams before they exfiltrated the area. Iranian state media later broadcast images of charred wreckage in the southern Isfahan region, claiming they had destroyed the American craft.
This successful rescue follows the Friday recovery of the F-15E’s pilot, who was retrieved in “broad daylight” just seven hours after the initial crash. That earlier mission also faced significant resistance, with an HH-60W Jolly Green II rescue helicopter and an A-10 Thunderbolt II taking ground fire. While the pilot of the F-15E and a separate A-10 pilot were both recovered earlier in the weekend, the 36-hour saga of the colonel had become a tense focal point of the five-week-old conflict.
As the rescued colonel receives medical care at an undisclosed U.S. military facility, the successful mission is being hailed as a major propaganda and tactical victory for Washington. Conversely, Iranian officials have downplayed the rescue, focusing instead on the “ruinous cost” of the destroyed U.S. transport planes. With all three American airmen from the weekend’s shoot-downs now safely in U.S. hands, the Pentagon is expected to shift its focus back to broader strategic air operations over the region.
