IRANIAN forces have said they struck down two fighter jets belonging to the United States military, one over the southwest part of the country and another around the Strait of Hormuz.
A spokesperson for the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said on Friday that air defences completely destroyed one F-15 jet. Later in the day, the Iranian military said it targeted an A-10 US aircraft that crashed into the Gulf.
The New York Times had cited unidentified officials as saying that the A10’s pilot was safe after the crash.
But the fate of at least one pilot from the downed F-15 crew is unknown. Several US media outlets reported that one crew member of the jet was located and rescued by US forces, but the other remains missing.
US President Donald Trump told NBC News on Friday that the downing of the jet will not affect the prospect of talks with Tehran. “No, not at all. No, it’s war. We’re in war,” he said.
State media outlets in Iran showed photos of the wreckage of the F-15 jet and what appears to be an ejection seat with an attached parachute.
After the jet was downed, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf mocked Trump’s repeated claims of victory in the war.
“After defeating Iran 37 times in a row, this brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded from ‘regime change’ to ‘Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?’” Ghalibaf wrote in a social media post.
There was no immediate comment on the incident from the Pentagon and US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees military operations in the Middle East and much of Asia.
After past Iranian claims of downing US jets, CENTCOM has been quick to deny the reports.
Iranian officials called on civilians to be on the lookout for survivors. The governor of Iran’s Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province said whoever captured the crew “would be specially commended”, according to the semi-official Iranian news agency ISNA.
Several US politicians acknowledged reports of the downed jet and expressed support for the US military.
“I’m praying for the safe return of the crew aboard the fighter jet and all of those working to rescue them in these dangerous conditions,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the social media platform X.
Since the start of the war on February 28, the US has lost three F-15 fighter jets in what it said was a friendly fire incident over Kuwait. A US military refuelling aircraft also fell over Iraq last month, killing all six crew members.
In addition, Iran has claimed to have struck down dozens of US drones over the country.
Trump and his top aides have repeatedly asserted that the US destroyed all of Iran’s air defences since the war began.
Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem said Iranian officials offered a reward for the downed pilots and called for locals to join in the search.
“The Iranians over the past days, since the March 19, been saying that they’ve introduced a new system that they developed after the 12 day war,” Hashem said.
Myles Caggins, a retired US Army colonel and non-resident senior fellow at New Lines Institute, a foreign policy think tank, called the downing of the jet a “significant event” for the US military.
“Iran’s primary air defence weapons were destroyed in the first days of the war through airstrikes or taken offline through sophisticated cyber attacks, but there are still manned portable air defence systems, and possibly that is the type of system that’s carried by one person that could have shot down this F-15,” Caggins said.