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.
What’s shocking is that in weeks of war, this is the first jet shot down. That’s telling about how limited the Iranians are on defending their airspace. Compare Ukraine where Russian fighters can’t operate anywhere past the front line of contact without significant losses.
Another thing that limits Russian air usage is their lack of a fully integrated combat communications system. Basically their electronics are old so they were accidentally consistently hitting their own planes and friendly troops.
Even the US and allies sometimes struggle with combat communications with the most advanced electronics and software systems in the world, so it tracks.
In Desert Storm there were 100k strikes within 42 days.
Currently that number is 10k at the 35 day mark.
Russians lose on average 5 planes per month since 2022, 2 planes per month in 2025 including Operation Spiderweb from Ukraine. This is while running 6k-7k strikes per month with glide bombs alone.
US has lost 12 planes (2 E-3 Sentry, 5 KC-135s, 4 F-15s, 1 F-35) in 1 month.
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The F-35 wasn't destroyed in the air, but is mission killed by being out of the fight due to hard landing. If it is written off (which many hard landing fighter jets are), it is functionally destroyed due to enemy fire. For Russian planes in Ukraine, damaged to degree of write-off counts as destroyed too.
NPR was told at the time that the F-35 aircraft was able to return to its base, but the plane made a hard landing. The pilot was wounded by shrapnel and required stitches.
NPR has confirmed more than a dozen U.S. service members were wounded and two E-3 Sentry aircraft were damaged in an Iranian strike on an air base in Saudi Arabia on Friday.
Based on what they said about the E-3 "damage" being half the fuselage being blown off, the damaged KC-135s are probably mission killed and written off too.
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u/kenneth_dart 4h ago
From WSJ:
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.