How a perilous US rescue mission in Iran nearly went off course

DOWNED PILOT HID, MADE CONTACT

The rescued US weapons specialist was the second of two crew members on an F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet that Iran said ​on Friday had been hit by its air defences. The US official said the plane was flying over Isfahan province when it was brought down, and the two airmen ejected separately. The pilot was rescued while the second airman remained in Iran.

US air crews are trained in Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) techniques if downed behind enemy lines, but few are fluent in Persian and face a challenge in staying undetected while seeking rescue.

A US source familiar with some of the operational details said the American officer, whom Trump said held the rank of colonel, sprained his ankle and hid in a crevice on a hilltop.

The official said the airman later established contact with the US military and authenticated himself – a critical step to ensure rescue forces were not walking into a trap.

The CIA had run a deception campaign earlier, hoping to confuse Tehran by planting information inside Iran that US forces had already located the missing airman and were moving him before the operation took place, a senior Trump administration official said.

But the US military took additional steps, jamming electronics and bombing key roads around the location to prevent people from getting close, the US source familiar with the planning said.

The source told Reuters that the aircraft eventually sent to extract the airman and rescue forces were much smaller turboprop aircraft, capable of landing on small airfields and relatively light.

Throughout the operation, the White House, the Pentagon and the US military’s Central Command were uncharacteristically silent. Trump was so relatively quiet that a local reporter went to check if he was at Walter Reed Hospital.

Once the mission was complete, Trump was triumphant.

“Over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in US History,” Trump said in a statement, adding that the airman was injured, but “he will be just fine”.