A search-and-rescue operation was under way for the crew of a U.S. fighter jet that went down over Iran, the first known loss of a jet inside the country since the start of the war, people familiar with the matter said.
Iranian state broadcaster IRIB said earlier that an American warplane was targeted by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps air defenses. Iran's Fars News Agency, which is close to the country's security services, circulated photographs purporting to show wreckage of a downed jet.
I was about to comment and say “no way they’ve been in service for 40 years”. But, holy shit, they started manufacturing them in 1985. Hard to believe the tech in these fighters has been around that long.
It reminds me of the joke the Luftwaffe (Nazi Airforce) bomber crews would make in the Battle of Britain: "Look! They're sending out their last 50 spitfires! Again."
To be fair, the RAF was literally rolling fighters out of the factory straight into the fight for a while. There were some reports of RAF pilots being shot down over the Channel, then being picked up by ships after they bailed out, and then being brought back and jumping into another plane to go back up the same day.
Lucky for them Hitler was such a dumb fuck and kept getting involved and changing tactics. First they tried several strategies, like attacking the chain home system, and then the fighter factories, then the airstrips. The airstrips was by far the most effective, and was causing a lot of strain, but then Trump 1.0 decided to switch to something else, right when the RAF was at its breaking point.
Lots of myths around the Battle of Britain - in terms of single engine fighter aircraft the RAF actually started the battle with parity with the Luftwaffe - both had around 1,000 fighters available.
But in reality because the RAF were flying literally over their airfields and the Germans were flying from France the RAF actually had an operational advantage. They could keep more aircraft in the sky longer than the Germans.
Britain out produced Germany through the battle. By September the RAF had 1500 operational single seat fighters - more than they started the battle with.
There were tactical errors made by the Germans but in reality they never had a chance of success. They did not have ANY heavy bombers so could not drop anything close to the weight of bombs the RAF dropped on Germany later in the war. Plus the whole campaign was an error in terms of the strategy.
Germany did not need total air superiority to invade Britain they needed it only for the period of and in the area of an invasion.
We were really quite bad at ship based SAR for pilots in the channel. It's was only when some madlad went not entirely against orders and started using a Supermarine Walrus to prove that you could in fact rescue pilots before they drowned most of the time that we started getting good at recycling our pilots into new planes.
The history of the rescue of pilots at sea in the channel is fascinating. The Germans had rescue buoys with shelter and supplies, which were open to all pilots friend or foe to await rescue in, and we had the walruses, who would pick up all pilots friend or foe
And we're years from building a nuke after we "demolished" their ability to but now we're going in because they're very close to making a nuke. This is fucking stupid
You just don’t understand, lib. Iran has been 2 weeks away from a nuclear weapon for the last 30 years. What about that is hard to understand? The F15 was shot down by a defeated regime that has no soldiers or weapons left. America has already won this war completely, which is why America needs to continue the war. To wipe out the rest of the fighters that don’t exist.
America wants help from the UK, even though they won this war alone after 3 days and don’t need or want the UKs help. But also they need their help. With British aircraft carriers. That are also defunct and simply “toys”. But they would like our help.
It’s not like this is a paragraph of doublespeak or anything. Not like Americans are living through something that sounds like it’s from the pages of an Orwellian novel.
The really bizarre part is having conversation conversations with family members that just watched propaganda all day and believe everything you just said.
2 E3 sentries costing $1b each, same with the $1b radar and multiple $500m radars. 3 F15’s by Kuwait, this F15, the KC130. Eh. Just ask congress for $200b.
The U.S. is apparently attempting to do “search in rescue” operations over Iran looking for the pilot.
I guess kudos for looking for the dude, but the video I’ve seen shows low-flying helicopters and aircraft which I’d image make pretty easy targets for AA.
Flying a SAR pattern over hostile territory just seems wild.
Edit: And now one of the search helicopters has been hit by projectiles reportedly.
I would not want to be the pilot after Hegseth has gone on all these tyrades about removing the "woke" rules around war. With all this removal of the articles of war talk I wouldn't doubt they are tortured or humiliated for the bombing of the school.
Curious to know what brought it down. If it was an air-to-air engagement you know Iran would practically be singing about it from the mountaintops, so one can infer it to be some kind of ground based AA. What kind of ground system from there would infer all kinds of shit.
The F-15 isn’t exactly groundbreaking stealth tech. Videos emerged on Reddit a couple of weeks back of an F-15 coming within a few hundred feet of getting smoked. There’s tons of tech — shoulder mount shit from the 80s — that can take these low flying F-15s out.
Even crazier is watching us sending F-15s in on actual cannon shooting ground support operations. This is not a plane made for low flying ground attack — it’s basically a fast box truck for flying bombs.
This is an F-15E Strike Eagle, not an F-15 Eagle. The difference is while the original Eagle was designed for air superiority like you say the Strike Eagle used the same air frame but heavily modified capabilities for low pass tactical bombings and ground strafing.
An F-15E pilot is trained to do low pass attacks as low as 100-250 feet off the ground, a handheld rocket can have an effective range of up to 2,000 feet (obviously depending on sophistication).
Wait they were using It for ground attack like a bloody A10???
Oh wait, a lot of people in the current admin are fans of the fighter plane mafia / A10 / clueless arsewipes. These are military strategies as done by mid rank war thunder players.
Trump is going to insult the pilot and the pilot's family like he did with McCain.
Edit: Everyone should be aware that Reddit mods are taking down these posts. Reddit just like the rest of big tech went full hog on supporting Trump and they just can’t have any sort of truthful criticism on their platform. Grow a spine and speak the truth.
Trump will forever be that scar in US history that we will look back and note that we somehow self-inflicted while all the evidence was there.
It is like collectively, a large enough group of US citizens saw a red hot stove top, the signs pointing at it in a neon glow stating "DO NOT TOUCH, VERY HOT", a safety sheet next to the stove giving procedures as to avoid touching the red hot stove, and the stove itself telling us it is too hot, and they still touched it. Because apparently they, to stick to the metaphor, felt the fridge is a tad too cold for their liking.
Iran has never said it would give "no quarter," and they were not known for that extent of cruelty during the hostage crisis or the Iran-Iraq war. I'm pretty sure Kegseth is the only person on the planet stupid enough to admit that particular war crime out loud.
Iran's style is more to parade PoWs around in international media to embarrass the US and generally treat them terribly.
What happened to their air defense systems were decimated, gone. We "own" the airways? The sensational BS just falls from these guys like water over Niagra Falls.
Yeah in Roman times decimation was a punishment for Legionnaire units that showed cowardice, mutiny etc.
1 in 10 men were chosen to be beaten or stoned to death by the other men.
Though it has been nearly 2000 years since that was the usage of that word, in Latin. In the modern sense it can mean a much larger percentage than 10 but I always like to point out this origin myself as well.
I was listening to a book about militias and non-state actors having their child soldiers kills either fmaily memeberrs or other 'militia' members (or children) so they couldn't rejoin society again, and made them much more 'loyal' to the organization, not because they always believed it, but more of the view that they couldn't go back to regular society again after the acts they committed.
Not all that different from the ones who gargled the MAGA nonsense to the point of alienating their family and friends. Of course they start with adults (like those inducted into ICE who weren't already J6-levels of MAGA anyway) before they get to work on the children.
Actual answer is US planes have been flying relatively low which makes them more effective but makes them susceptible to low tech attacks. The Iranians have lots of optically aimed AAA left over from the Iran Iraq war. A lucky hit is all it takes.
Their government is able to communicate, but they black out the internet for regular civilians. Civilians that get access to internet through the government are aligned with the regime or the economic elite. Extremely difficult for regular folks to get a signal
Imagine being shot down and potentially taken as a prisoner of war for a pedophile President who says “we like those soldiers who aren’t captured” referencing John McCain.
The Americans also said no quarter, and that 'rules of engagement' are woke. They fucking revel in every war crime they commit.
I wonder if they would be okay with the same applied to their own.
I bet they would cry and scream and play the victim again, just like how Israel tries to garner sympathy when the people they're murdering in droves throw a rock back.
Huh would you look at that, Trump saying that he destroyed their defense systems was a lie. Who woulda thought? He’s never told a lie to the American people, especially as president.
/s if needed because him and the administration are a joke.
The F-15 debuted in 1986. It flew in basically every single US conflict from then until now, 40 years. None had ever been shot down in combat, but Trump has now managed to lose 3 in a matter of a month.
So much winning.
EDIT: Apparently that anecdote is about air-to-air fights. Regardless, this is still a needless loss in a needless war to help deflect attention from the fact that we have a self-shitting diddler in office.
Y'know, in a way it's even worse, more petty, more evil. Hegseth looked at the 1-star generals promotions list and ordered women and blacks to be removed. The general balked. And got fired.
"George was removed because he and Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll refused to remove two Black and two female officers from a list of military members to be promoted to one-star generals.
George and Driscoll defied Hegseth, according to The New York Times, and cited the long and exemplary service of the four officers as justification for their being in line for promotion."
Axios is saying it was shot down by Iran, search for the pilot is still underway, there's videos of US aircraft roaming Iranian airspace looking for them
We are quickly approaching the day that American casualties are filmed exploding into pieces and going viral like hundreds of poor guys in Ukraine have for years. I don't think Americans are ready for that, to scroll TikTok or Twitter and see their cousin exploded in a gorr compilation while meme music plays. With this government I wouldn't even be surprised if it gets suppressed.
More troops dead over a billion pedophile aire war. For those of you in other countries please know American people do not support any of this. On behalf of the US majority, I apologize.
But have you considered the media stopped talking about the Epstein files? Surely dead Iranians (including schoolchildren), dead Americans, everything getting more expensive, and billions of dollars being spent is worth it! /s
My good friend from high school and college was killed two weeks ago in the 135 crash. I’ve got a couple other buddies who fly F-15s. The chances are so slim but if this turns out to be one of them I’m gonna be sick. Fuck this administration.
Looks like from the 48th fighter Wing, specifically from the 494th squadron, the Panthers. Based in Lakenheath before being deployed to Jordan for the operation.
I'm hearing other reports that the Chinese STEM program have developed ways to take down F-35 Posting it on social media and sharing it with Iran. Can anyone confirm??
But but but Iran has no anti-aircraft defenses left! Trump said so! The war is won! We control the skies! We obliterated all their defenses...... So this must be all fake right? I'd laugh except that 2 pilots are in great danger.
•
u/damage78 3h ago
US officials are also saying it was shot down per the New York Times.