4/5: CBS Weekend News

The colonel was crouched in a mountain crevice at 7,000 feet inside Iran, his emergency beacon transmitting, while CIA operatives were feeding false intelligence to Iranian military units below, claiming U.S. forces had already found him and were moving him overland. The deception bought critical hours. By Sunday, April 5, nearly 48 hours after his F-15E Strike Eagle went down over southwestern Iran, American special operations forces extracted him, wounded but expected to make a full recovery.

The F-15E, assigned to the 48th Fighter Wing at Royal Air Force Lakenheath in Suffolk, England, was on a night mission over the Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province region when it was shot down on April 3. Both crew members ejected: a pilot, recovered within hours, and a Weapons Systems Officer, a colonel whose identity has not been publicly released, who remained missing for nearly two days as Iran mobilized its military and offered a reward for his capture.

Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Houston Cantwell told the Associated Press this was the first U.S. fighter jet shot down in combat in over 20 years, since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Senior U.S. officials described the recovery as one of the most challenging combat search-and-rescue missions in the history of U.S. special operations. Hundreds of special forces troops from all service branches, dozens of aircraft and helicopters, and a temporary staging base established inside Iranian territory were all part of the effort.

The colonel's survival depended on his Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape training. He climbed a 7,000-foot mountain ridgeline, found a crevice, and activated an emergency beacon. The CIA used what officials described as unique intelligence capabilities to pinpoint his exact coordinates and relay them to the Pentagon and the White House. President Trump ordered the immediate rescue upon receiving them, with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth providing constant updates throughout the two-day search.

An earlier rescue attempt drew fire: Iranian forces struck a U.S. Blackhawk helicopter, wounding crew members, though it remained flyable. An A-10 Thunderbolt Warthog was also downed, its pilot ejecting safely into Kuwaiti airspace before the aircraft crashed in Kuwait. It marked the first known instance of two aircrew from the same downed aircraft being recovered separately in deep enemy territory.

Trump announced the rescue with "WE GOT HIM!" on social media and called it "an Easter miracle" in a message to NBC News, adding that "The Iranians thought they had him, but it wasn't even close." He also told Fox News on Sunday there was a "good chance" of a deal with Iran by Monday.

Within hours, Trump issued a profanity-laden Truth Social post threatening to bomb Iran's power plants and bridges unless Tehran reopened the Strait of Hormuz, setting a deadline of 8 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, April 7.

Iran's IRGC formally closed the Strait on March 27, 2026, blocking vessels bound to or from U.S., Israeli, and allied ports. The closure disrupts roughly 20% of the world's daily oil supply, and Brent crude surpassed $100 per barrel. Analysts warn prices could reach $200 if the closure holds; the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas estimated the disruption would cut global real GDP growth by an annualized 2.9%.

Iranian officials were unmoved. Mehdi Tabatabaei, communications deputy for President Masoud Pezeshkian's office, said Trump had turned to profanity "out of sheer desperation and rage." Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf warned Trump's "reckless moves" were dragging the U.S. toward "a living HELL." Iran also claimed its "new advanced air defence system," which it insisted had not been destroyed despite U.S. claims, was responsible for downing the F-15E — a direct challenge to Washington's narrative of what the mission accomplished, and at what cost.