Overview
- At Monday's White House briefing, President Donald Trump and senior officials described a rescue that used deception and what they called an air armada to recover a stranded airman inside Iran.
- The F‑15E Strike Eagle was shot down Friday, April 3, and the pilot was extracted within hours under heavy fire while the weapons systems officer evaded capture for roughly two days before a larger recovery force reached him.
- Officials credited CIA surveillance and a deception campaign with fixing the airman's location and diverting Iranian forces, and Trump said the second phase involved about 155 aircraft and decoy objective sites.
- Gen. Dan Caine said an A‑10 was hit and its pilot later ejected over friendly territory, and Trump said U.S. teams destroyed stranded transport aircraft and Little Bird helicopters on site to keep equipment from Iranian hands.
- AFP reported Tuesday that a viral clip claiming to show the rescue was old 2024 training footage, and claims about an airman's identity and $500 million in U.S. losses remain unverified by U.S. officials.