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News outlets in Iran share photos of wreckage and what appears to be an ejection seat with an attached parachute.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published On 3 Apr 2026<\/span>3 Apr 2026<\/span><\/p>\n |<\/span><\/p>\n Updated: 17 minutes ago<\/span>Updated: 17 minutes ago<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Iranian forces have launched a search operation for the crew of a United States fighter jet which was downed by an air defence system, Iranian media reported.<\/p>\n Iranian military forces were conducting a search to find the crew of the aircraft that was hit over southwestern Iran, the Fars news agency said on Friday.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n The downing is the first such report since the US-Israeli war with Iran\u00a0began on February 28.<\/p>\n State media outlets in Iran showed photos of the wreckage of the jet and what appears to be an ejection seat with an attached parachute.<\/p>\n The Reuters news agency cited two US officials saying that a fighter jet was shot down over Iran and that a search and rescue operation was under way for survivors. The Associated Press has reported one person was recovered.<\/p>\n After the jet was downed, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf mocked US President Donald Trump\u2019s repeated claims of victory in the war.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter defeating Iran 37 times in a row, this brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded from \u2018regime change\u2019 to \u2018Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?’\u201d Ghalibaf wrote in a social media post.<\/p>\n According to Iranian reports, the aircraft was an F-15 jet and likely manned by two pilots.<\/p>\n Later on Friday, a spokesperson for the Iranian military\u2019s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said air defences completely destroyed the jet, adding that search operations are still ongoing.<\/p>\n There was no immediate comment on the incident from the Pentagon and US Central Command (CENTCOM).<\/p>\n In past Iranian claims of downing US jets, CENTCOM has been quick to deny the reports.<\/p>\n Iranian \u2060officials called on civilians to \u2060be on the lookout for survivors.<\/p>\n The governor of Iran\u2019s Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province said \u200cwhoever captured the crew \u201cwould be specially commended\u201d, according to the \u200csemi-official \u200cIranian news agency ISNA.<\/p>\n Several US politicians acknowledged reports of the downed jet and expressed support for the US military.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m praying for the safe return of the crew aboard the fighter jet and all of those working to rescue them in these dangerous conditions,\u201d Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the social media platform X.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Iran has claimed downing dozens of US drones over the country.<\/p>\n Trump and his top aides have claimed multiple time that the US destroyed all of Iran\u2019s air defences.<\/p>\n Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera\u2019s Ali Hashem said Iranian officials have offered a reward for the downed pilots and called for locals to join in the search.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Iranians over the past days, since the March 19, been saying that they\u2019ve introduced a new system that they developed after the 12 day war,\u201d Hashem said.<\/p>\n Myles Caggins, a retired US Army colonel and non-resident senior fellow at New Lines Institute, called the downing of the jet a \u201csignificant event\u201d for the US military.<\/p>\n \u201cIran\u2019s 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\u2019s carried by one person that could have shot down this F-15,\u201d Caggins said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n News outlets in Iran share photos of wreckage and what appears to be an ejection seat with an attached parachute. Published On 3 Apr 20263 Apr 2026 | Updated: 17 minutes agoUpdated: 17 minutes ago Iranian forces have launched a search operation for the crew of a United States fighter jet which was downed by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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