US F-15E Shot Down Over Iran, One Crew Member Rescued, Search Continues

US special forces rescued one of two crew members from a downed F-15E Strike Eagle inside Iranian territory Friday, as a second American, confirmed alive, remained stranded in central Iran with Tehran offering a public bounty for his capture.

The aircraft, a Boeing-made twin-engine jet belonging to the 494th Fighter Squadron of the 48th Fighter Wing, was deployed to Jordan from its home base at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, United Kingdom. Its loss is the first confirmed combat shootdown of an F-15E by Iranian air defenses since Operation Epic Fury, the US-Israel military campaign against Iran, launched on February 28, 2026.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters claimed responsibility, saying the jet was "struck and downed over central Iran by the IRGC Aerospace Force's new air defense system." The specific system was not identified by name. Iranian state media initially misidentified the wreckage as an F-35 stealth fighter, but debris imagery told a different story. Peter Layton, a fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute and former Royal Australian Air Force officer, examined the images and concluded: "From the structure it certainly looks like an F-15, and from the tail flash stripe markings, from the 48th Fighter Wing, based at RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom."

Both crew members, a pilot and a weapons-systems officer, ejected before the jet went down. US special forces located and extracted one from Iranian soil; that crew member is now in US custody and confirmed alive. Video circulating on social media appeared to show a US Air Force HC-130 refueling a pair of HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters over Iranian territory during the search for the second. President Donald Trump was briefed on the incident.

The Iranian response to the surviving crew member was immediate and organized. Authorities in Kohgiluyeh province called on residents to assist in locating the American, and Iran's former top diplomat offered a separate personal reward for the crew's capture. Iranian state television aired footage of a female anchor urging civilians to help find the pilots.

The shootdown deepens a conflict that has already claimed 13 American lives and left 348 US personnel wounded as of March 31. Operation Epic Fury opened on February 28 with coordinated US-Israeli surprise strikes that targeted Iranian nuclear facilities, missile infrastructure, and proxy networks, and that assassinated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The first US combat deaths followed the next morning, March 1, when six American troops were killed in an Iranian drone strike on a base at Port Shuaiba, Kuwait.

Friday's loss stands apart from three earlier F-15E losses in the conflict. Those three jets were brought down in a friendly fire incident involving Kuwaiti forces near the war's start; all six crew members survived. The US has also lost at least 16 MQ-9 Reaper drones since February 28. The F-15 family carries a record of more than 100 air-to-air kills, but combat losses to ground-based air defenses are historically rare, making Friday's shootdown a milestone that underscores Iran's still-functioning defensive capability deep into the 34th day of the war.