For nearly two days, wounded and alone, an American aviator hid in a remote mountain crevice as Iranian forces and militias attacked him with helicopters and drones.
“God is good,” the Air Force colonel radioed after reaching a high peak, a message that was initially met with skepticism in Washington as a possible Iranian trap as officials struggled to verify that he was still alive.
On Sunday morning, they heard the heavy thunder of American planes and a shower of fire as America commandos reached them 200 miles inside Iran. As they moved it to safety, they detonated the grounded aircraft rather than risk sophisticated military equipment falling into Iranian hands, causing a final explosion and a plume of smoke.
U.S. officials said the rescue operation in the rugged valleys of southwestern Iran was the kind of operation that military commanders had both planned for and feared: a downed U.S. airman in enemy territory, hostile forces coalescing and initial efforts thwarted by gunfire.
The aviator, who has not been identified, was one of two crewmen flying in an F-15E Strike Eagle with the aircraft call sign “Dude 44” when it was shot down by Iranian forces on Friday.
According to US officials, immediately after the plane crashed, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and General Dan Kaine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed President Trump on the situation. He told them that the Pentagon had long planned for this scenario and that he could have saved the airmen.
Once the Pentagon confirmed the aviator’s identity, Hegseth rushed to the Oval Office to brief him and take final orders, officials said. Trump asked to launch them.
A massive, high-risk rescue operation was launched in an effort to recover the officer, involving approximately 100 special-operations forces, dozens of US warplanes and helicopters, and at the last minute Central Intelligence Agency fraud operation To buy more time, officials said.
“When airmen go down, you can’t find them in very tough countries like Vietnam,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday morning. The president continued, “He was able to climb, despite being injured he was able to climb up, he was able to climb into a crack,” the airman heard US forces searching for him. “A lot of great things happened.”
The troops, led by Central Command, brought devastating firepower to keep their enemy at bay. According to two U.S. officials, four B-1 bombers, part of a larger air force, dropped about 100 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs. MQ-9 Reaper drones also attacked suspected fighters when they came within kilometers of the aviator’s hiding place.
The search for an American airman trapped behind enemy lines shocked America, giving a sense of an abstract air war beyond the grainy footage of explosions released by the White House.
As the war enters its sixth week, it also provided a new story for both sides. The Iranian regime has described the downing of the jet as proof that the US can be made bloody and challenged Trump’s claims of US air superiority.
In victory interviews and posts, Trump and some of his aides are calling the successful operation an “Easter miracle” as the administration seeks to garner public support for the war.
“You crazy bastards, open the fuckin’ filibuster or you’re in hell,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Easter morning. strait of hormuzIran has largely closed the strategic waterway to commercial traffic since the war began. In a separate post, the President gave Iran a deadline of 8 pm on Tuesday to comply before the US begins targeting bridge and power plant.
The most famous rescue operation the US previously attempted in Iran – aimed at freeing 53 US embassy staffers taken hostage nearly 46 years ago – failed dramatically after a series of mishaps, culminating in a fatal crash in a desert staging area.
worst case scenario
When a fire broke out on an F-15E on Friday, the aircrew pulled their ejection handle, causing the canopy to blow off, seats to be blown from the cockpit and their parachutes to deploy. Below them, the damaged plane crashed hundreds of miles inside Iranian territory.
But while a U.S. military crew was able to quickly rescue the pilot, the other crew member, who was flying in the back seat of the fighter as a weapons-systems officer, went missing.
“We didn’t reveal the first one, because then they would have known about the second one. So by not talking about the first one, it took them a day and a half to find out there was a second one,” Trump told the Journal on Sunday about the missing airmen.
This news first came on Iran’s state television. A female anchor, reading from a page of the paper, announced that a US aircrew had ejected from a plane in southwestern Iran. The Americans were believed to be in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, in a mountainous province with steep slopes.
He urged “all tribals and villagers” to cooperate with the army and law enforcement. “If you capture the enemy pilot or pilots alive and hand them over to the police, you will get a priceless reward,” he said against the backdrop of a military march.
For the Pentagon, this was a worst-case scenario. Military experts said it was the first time an operated American aircraft was lost over enemy territory in more than 20 years. Video footage of US airman captured by enemy hands may have been handed over to Tehran Major Promotional Tools And a source of advantage at the critical moment of the war. US officials were concerned that the regime would use the airmen’s hold to extract maximum concessions.
White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt said Trump was in the Oval Office on Friday and Saturday to receive frequent updates from Hegseth. Hegseth repeatedly visited the White House to deliver in-person briefings.
According to senior officials, shortly after the airman landed, he was able to reach a high mountain and make contact by activating an emergency beacon to send evidence of his survival. But as he hid in the mountainous terrain, communications went in and out and US officials tried to track his location.
The complex mission quickly ran into problems, officials said..
As the US redirected aircraft to the area to help the mission, some planned targets, including missile launcher sites, remained untouched. Officials said this has allowed Iran to operate more weapons than usual in recent days.
The first attempt to rescue the airman had to be aborted. Officials said two H-6 helicopters opened fire from the ground with small arms fire, wounding the crew of both aircraft and forcing them to land safely in Kuwait.
When two MC-130Js, a special-operations aircraft, landed at a temporary forward-operating base inside Iran they encountered a problem when their nose wheels stuck into the ground and could not take off, officials said. There was a contingency plan: three small planes carrying special teams flew to a remote staging area later.
Time was of the essence. Regular Iranian forces, pro-regime militias and members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were searching for the airman, and were using helicopters and drones to locate him. The US deployed MQ-9 Reaper drones and other aircraft to attack Iranian trackers, giving the airmen a greater chance of survival.
CIA also helped in the operation. After using its capabilities to pinpoint the aviator’s location in a mountain crevice, which a senior administration official described as finding a needle in a haystack, the agency shared that information with the Pentagon and the White House, and continued to provide real-time information during the operation.
The CIA also ran a deception campaign to divert the Iranians from the airmen’s path. As the pilot hid from Iranian forces, the agency spread false news inside the country that US forces had already located the downed airman and were preparing to ground him for infiltration.
Officials said other US intelligence agencies also provided assistance to the mission. A US and Israeli official said US officials coordinated with Israel to share intelligence to help the mission and prevent attacks in the area.
The Israeli official said Israel also conducted strikes in the operation area in coordination with US forces, attacking assets that could pose a threat to the evacuation effort.
Once the mission was completed, the US destroyed two stuck MC-130Js, worth more than $100 million each, and two MH-6 Little Bird helicopters so that their sensitive technology would not be compromised after they were left behind.
After hours of speculation, Trump posted the news shortly after midnight. “We found him!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The US military sent dozens of planes equipped with the world’s deadliest weapons to bring him back. He was injured, but he will be fine.”
Write to Vera Bergengruen vera.bergengruen@wsj.comin alexander ward alex.ward@wsj.comMichael R. gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com and shelby on holiday shelby.holliday@wsj.com
