“We got him!” Donald Trump declared victory Sunday morning.
“Over the past several hours, the United States military pulled off the most daring search and rescue operation in American history…I’m thrilled to let you know. [our missing airman] It’s safe and sound now!”
The president’s truthful social media post marked the end of a 36-hour drama that will be proud in the annals of United States military history.
The pilot was quickly rescued after a US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet was shot down in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmed provinces on Friday. But the weapons officer is missing.
What followed was a race against time between the US and Iran to recover the trapped colonel. Not only were the lives of Air Force Ones and dozens of Special Forces soldiers at risk to save him, but the reputation of the U.S. military was also at stake.
Mr Trump said: “This type of raid is rarely attempted because of the threat to ‘people and equipment’. It just doesn’t happen!”
Video footage from the site showed the deep mountainous region of southern Iran where the aviator landed after pulling the yellow side lever on his ejection seat.
The seat’s ejection system, which uses solid CKU-5 rocket propellant to blast through the jet’s canopy at about 200 meters per second, is one of the most sophisticated, but carries a high potential for spinal fractures and other injuries.
The US president confirmed on Sunday afternoon that the pilot was “seriously injured”. Earlier he had said the colonel was “hurt, but he will be fine”.
“This brave warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted by our enemies, who were getting closer by the hour,” said Mr Trump, who later described the airman’s rescue as a “miracle”.
Iranian media shared this unverified image of an ejector seat on Saturday, which is similar to the model used on the F-15E fighter.
Iranian media shows part of an F-15 that Tehran claims it shot down
The airman has his survival, survival, resistance, and escape (serre) instructions playing over his head.
But armed with only a pistol, beacon and secure communications equipment, everything depended on American special forces reaching him before the Iranian forces closed in.
He could not use the beacon because Iranian forces could detect it. But his use of encrypted communication tools caused confusion.
Mr Trump told Israeli television that the rescue was delayed because the colonel had sent a message saying “God is good”.
The US was concerned that the Iranians were holding their slain navigator hostage and forcing him to try to lure US rescue forces into an attack, Mr Trump told Channel 12.
He added that it took several hours for America to determine that the colonel, who has religious beliefs, was speaking of his own free will.
Every moment lost can be fatal.
Iran had offered a reward to anyone who found the officer, and a video shared on social media on Friday showed dozens of armed locals combing the countryside facing the challenge.
It was not an academic risk. A Black Hawk helicopter involved in the evacuation of the first of the two airmen — the pilot — was shot down from the ground immediately after the F-15E crashed Friday. Video footage shows one of the two helicopters belching smoke as it retreats into Iraq.
It was the Navy Special Warfare Development Group, or “SEAL Team 6,” as it was known, that was charged with rescuing the remaining airmen.
A specialist commando unit responsible for performing complex and particularly dangerous missions, it is used by the United States for counter-terrorism, reconnaissance and short-term offensive operations as well as rescue operations.
It was set up shortly after Operation Eagle Claw, the US military’s failed attempt to rescue 53 embassy staff held hostage by Iran in 1980 — something that made Saturday night especially sweet.
In the event, the ejection of the second airman proved to be a close call, and not everything went according to plan.
The evacuation operation was launched after the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) discovered the airman’s location and conducted a “deception operation” to convince the Iranians that he was already located elsewhere and that they were trying to get him out of the country through a port.
The agency used fake radio transmissions to deceive the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] Believing the pilot was moved to various decoy locations, effectively keeping search parties away from the mountains where he was actually hiding and giving the evacuation team more time.
Some reports have suggested that they used distress beacons as decoys to further focus Iranian forces in the first hours after the airman’s disappearance.
The actual rescue mission involved 100 Special Forces commandos being flown in specialist MC-130J trip carriers, landing on a temporary agricultural runway, normally used by crop-sprayers and other light aircraft. That runway was only 30 miles from Isfahan, one of Iran’s most important nuclear facilities.
MQ-9 Reaper drones and fast jets provided air cover, striking any military-age men deemed a threat at a three kilometer range.
The wounded colonel is reported to have climbed a ridge line 7,000 feet above sea level while US forces dropped bombs and fired on Iranian fighters.
He broke cover only at the last moments and performed a “brave move to meet his rescue team,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
The feint worked, but the ultimate drama occurred when two MC-130Js – which cost $100m (£75.6m) each – got stuck on an unpaved runway and had to be destroyed to prevent them falling into enemy hands.
“A little bird [an MH-6 helicopter] He flew to the top of the mountain and rescued the WSO [weapon systems officer] and brought him back to the landing strip. And of course the two C-130s nose gears got stuck in the dirt. So after a few hours they had to bring in three AFSOCs [Air Force Special Operations Command] Dash-8 rescued the 100 or so personnel involved in the WSO and the op,” a US military official told US journalist and author Michael Weiss.
‘There were no US casualties’
“The op basically cost $300 million because they had to drop two AFSOC C-130s and four MH-6 Little Birds. Then the US Air Force had to use a lot of bombs to blow up all the planes they had left on that airstrip. And the Iranians shot down two MQ-9s. [Reaper drones that were providing cover]”.
The official added: “Luckily the US suffered no casualties and we had to use several bombs and missiles to shoot down IRGC vehicles trying to drive into the mountains and even those trying to approach the airstrip.”
After the airman was evacuated, he was immediately taken to a hospital in Kuwait for treatment.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency initially claimed that “several enemy American planes were shot down by fighters of Islam in the southern Isfahan area, and the pilot’s rescue mission failed,” citing unnamed sources at Iran’s military headquarters.
The White House and the Pentagon were uncharacteristically silent in the 36 hours after the F-15E went down. But in the background, they were working overtime.
According to White House press secretary Carolyn Levitt, the president remained in the Oval Office throughout the drama, receiving constant updates from Pete Hegseth, the U.S. secretary of defense.
Mr Trump is expected to hold a formal press conference on the rescue on Monday.
On Sunday, sources close to the Israeli military claimed that Israel played an unspecified role in the rescue operation, something Mr. Trump later partially confirmed, telling Channel 12 that they helped “a little bit.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the rescue operation “proves that when free societies muster their courage and their resolve, they can face insurmountable conditions”.
Facing a general election in October, he added: “As a nation that has repeatedly carried out daring rescue operations, and as someone who was injured in such a mission and lost a brother in the Entebbe rescue, Israelis and I, we know what a brave decision you made.”
The operation denied Iran a potentially decisive propaganda victory, but the regime was doing well, with Mr Trump on Wednesday last week noting that Iran had “no anti-aircraft equipment” and was wrong to claim that “their radar was 100 per cent destroyed”.
In an effort to salvage what little victory they could win, Iranian officials also posted photos of the charred remains of one of the two MC-130Js that were burned on Sunday.
Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament, wrote in a social media post: “If the United States wins three more victories like this, it will be a complete waste.”
However Mr Trump hailed the mission as one for the ages. He wrote: “This is the first time in military memory that two American pilots have been rescued separately, deep into enemy territory. We will never leave an American warfighter behind!”
The Iranians were “lucky” to shoot down the F-15E fighter jet, he told Axios Newswire, adding that they had used nothing more than a “shoulder-launched missile.”
The rescue, Mr. Trump said, “was an amazing display of bravery and talent by everyone!”
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