U.S. fighter jet crashes in Iran; search launched for 2 crew members

It’s the first known loss of an American aircraft inside Iranian territory since the war began a month ago.

April 3, 2026 at 11:07 a.m. EDT2 minutes ago

By Alex Horton and Tara Copp

A U.S. fighter jet crashed in southern Iran on Friday, prompting a search and recovery mission for the two-person crew, two U.S. officials said, marking the first known instance of an American aircraft going down inside hostile territory in the month-long conflict.

The fate of the crew was not immediately clear.

The aircraft involved appeared to be an Air Force F-15E, according to officials and images of wreckage circulating by Iranian state media.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The incident a represents a potential political liability for President Donald Trump, who is facing strident pushback from opponents of the Iran war — including among some of his supporters, who elected him to a second term based in part on his campaign promises to avoid costly military entanglements. In a prime-time address this week, the president sought to defend his increasingly unpopular decision to start the conflict while asserting that the operation is “nearing completion.” It was not immediately clear how Friday’s developments could affect that timeline.

The U.S. jet was downed by antiaircraft fire by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to Tasnim, a semiofficial news agency tied to the IRGC. The report, which said the aircraft was destroyed, referred to only one crew member, a pilot who it said “ejected and landed inside the country.”

The Iranians have frequently made unverified claims about downing U.S. planes and destruction of aircraft on the ground. On Friday, the IRGC also announced that an F-35 fighter jet had been “destroyed in the skies of central Iran by the new advanced defense system of the IRGC Aerospace Force.”

Combat search and rescue operations are some of the most risky missions carried out by the U.S. military. Aircrews and recovery personnel are on constant standby for such contingencies, then rush into a rapidly evolving and chaotic environment. While these personnel are backed by combat-capable troops, helicopters and planes used for such missions are vulnerable to enemy fire because they fly lower to the ground and must rely on other armed aircraft to protect them.

Video verified by The Washington Post shows a C-130 refueling aircraft flying low in western Iran, about 90 miles from the border with Iraq. The tanker is shown fueling two HH-60G helicopters, which specialize in combat search and rescue, said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The fact that they are flying so low and slow indicates willingness to take a lot of risk,” Cancian said.

The incident Friday marks the fourth loss of an F-15 since the Iran war began. In early March, Kuwaiti personnel mistakenly shot down three of the jets. All six crew members ejected and were recovered safely.

To date, 13 American service members have been killed as a result of Operation Epic Fury, the Trump administration’s name for its war on Iran. Seven died as a result of hostile fire. Six were killed in a plane crash in Iraq. Nearly 370 others have been wounded during the conflict, according to publicly released tallies.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Karen DeYoung, Meg Kelly, Joyce Sohyun Lee, Heba Farouk Mahfouz, Samuel Oakford, Dan Lamothe, Aaron Schaffer and Siham Shamalakh contributed to this report.