Plane shot down in Iran: what we know about the still missing American pilot

Iran and the United States have been engaged in a race against time since Friday, April 3. Tehran and Washington aim to find one of the two occupants of the first American plane to crash in Iranian territory since the beginning of the war, a two-seater F-15E.

In total, two American fighter jets, a two-seater F-15E in Iran and an A-10 Warthog over Kuwait, were shot down by Iranian forces on Friday. The second pilot of the F-15 and the pilot of the A-10 were rescued by Americans.

A rescue operation was launched by the American army to recover the crew of the downed plane. Several American media outlets, including the New York Times, CNN, and CBS, citing sources close to the matter or unidentified American and Israeli officials, claim that one of the two pilots of the plane was rescued by American forces. However, no official source has confirmed this yet.

The Iranian state television aired images that it described as those of the downed American plane. The Iranian army referred to the downed plane as an F-35, a single-seater. However, according to William Goodhind, an image analyst at Contested Ground interviewed by Reuters, the images showing presumed debris of the downed plane circulated on social media correspond to those of an F-15E. CNN, which analyzed the images broadcast by Iranian state television showing, among other things, an ejection seat on the ground, confirms that the model seems to match an F-15.

Search operations to find the missing American crew member are still ongoing on Saturday, according to a regional Iranian official quoted by the Iranian media outlet Nournews.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declared that it was meticulously searching an area near where the plane crashed in southwestern Iran, while a reward was offered to anyone who captured the survivors before the first pilot was found. American helicopters flying at low altitudes in the area where the plane crashed were targeted by Iranian gunfire, according to Reuters, citing two American officials.

Senator Tammy Duckworth, a former army helicopter pilot who lost both legs and partial use of her right arm when a rocket hit her Black Hawk helicopter during the Iraq war, advocated for the recovery of the missing American pilot.

The White House stated on Friday that Donald Trump was “kept informed” of the situation but did not provide details on the ongoing operations. President Trump was unable to say what the U.S. response would be if the missing crew member of the downed plane were to be injured or captured. The perspective of a potential capture of an American pilot by Iranian forces could heavily influence the political dynamics in the United States where the conflict is disapproved by a large majority of the population.

13 American soldiers have lost their lives since the start of the conflict, and 300 others have been injured, according to the Central Command. These losses, highlighted by Iranian propaganda, underscore the risks that American and Israeli planes are still facing despite the firepower deployed by both countries in the region. The possibility of an American pilot being captured by Iranian forces could have a significant impact on U.S. political dynamics. (Context: The article discusses the ongoing tensions between Iran and the United States following the downing of American planes by Iranian forces during the conflict.) (Fact Check: The content is a neutral report on the events and actions taken by both Iranian and American forces without bias or opinion.)