US F-15E Shot Down: A US fighter jet has gone down over Iran, and this has started a major search to find the two people who were inside. Reuters reported on Friday that a US official said an American fighter had been shot down over Iran and that a search and rescue mission was underway for the crew. The Washington Post also reported that the aircraft was an F-15E and said this was the first confirmed case of a US manned aircraft going down inside Iran during the current war.
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Early reports from Iranian state media first said a different kind of US warplane had been hit. Images shown on Iranian television included a tail fin and other broken pieces from the crashed aircraft.
Iran said it shot down a US Air Force fighter jet over its territory and released images that appear to show the wreckage of a jet that online commentators say is an F-15E Strike Eagle from the 494th Fighter Squadron. Analysts said debris in the video matches the F-15E’s design.… pic.twitter.com/fdaK72MSmF
— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) April 3, 2026
Later, aviation experts quoted by fresh reporting said the wreckage looked like it came from an F-15E, not an F-35. The Washington Post said the aircraft was identified as an F-15E from the US Air Force’s 494th Fighter Squadron, which is based at RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom.
Rescue Mission Underway
US officials later said quietly, without speaking on the record, that an F-15E had been brought down and that the Pentagon was urgently trying to locate the two crew members. Reuters said there was still no official public statement from the Pentagon or US Central Command at that stage.
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More video from Iran then showed a US C-130 Hercules and HH-60 rescue helicopters flying very low. At one point they were seen refuelling together. This added to talk inside Iran that the crew may have managed to eject and survive. Aviation expert Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute said the use of the rescue helicopters “suggested a combat search and rescue mission is underway to locate and extract the two aircrew from the F-15E”. The Washington Post reported that verified footage supported the idea that a dangerous rescue effort was in progress near western Iran.
He added, “If genuine it would suggest that at least one of the two aircrew did eject safely,” Bronk added. That gave some hope that at least one crew member may have survived the crash.
Iran’s Claims
Iranian television also made a public appeal after the crash. The presenter on one channel told people to hand over any “enemy pilot” to the police and said a reward would be given. After that, Tasnim news agency reported that the pilot had been taken into custody, even though earlier Iranian reporting had claimed the pilot likely died. Iranian reports at first wrongly described the aircraft as an F-35 before later coverage moved toward the F-15E story, The Guardian reports.
