US President Donald Trump on Monday revealed dramatic new details of the daring rescue of the second crew member of an F-15E shot down in Iran, describing how the critically wounded Air Force officer survived nearly 48 hours behind what he called “enemy lines” before being recovered in one of the most complex missions in modern US history.The officer, a colonel known by the call sign “Dude Bravo 44,” was part of the crew of the downed F-15E Strike Eagle. While the pilot was quickly recovered near Isfahan, the weapons systems officer landed a significant distance away and remained stuck in hostile territory, the New York Post reported.
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Wave 98: The Iranian Revolutionary Guard announces that the US amphibious assault ship LHA-7 has been hit; US Central Command calls it a lie He watches
Trump said the pilot was “very seriously injured” and “bleeding profusely” while evading capture in an area “infested with terrorists” from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Despite his condition, the officer climbed to higher ground — a survival tactic — and treated his wounds while hiding in a crevice. “He was seriously injured and stranded,” Trump said, praising his “absolute commitment to staying alive.”At one point, the colonel conveyed a brief message, “God is good,” a US defense official told Axios. Trump told Axios that it “sounds like something a Muslim would say,” referring to “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is Great,” before US forces determined the message was real and not a trap.
Trump described the ensuing rescue mission as “one of the most complex” ever. He added that 155 aircraft, including bombers, fighters, refueling tankers and rescue units, were deployed in a coordinated effort that included deception methods and flying at low altitudes under the threat of enemy fire.John Ratcliffe said the intelligence operations helped “confuse the Iranians who were desperately searching for our pilot,” and likened the effort to finding “the same grain of sand in the middle of the desert.”The extraction process itself ran into a last-minute complication when the plane got stuck in wet sand during takeoff. “We got stuck pretty well,” Trump said, adding that emergency plans ensured a successful escape.Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Cain praised the pilot’s resilience, saying his “will to survive” proved decisive. Meanwhile, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that Iran felt “embarrassed and humiliated” by the operation.According to Fox News, during the rescue operation, US B-2 bombers struck an underground headquarters of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Tehran using bunker-busting munitions. The target was a gathering of senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders, and US officials said the facility was destroyed, with many of them presumed dead. Several B-2s flew a 36-hour round trip from Whiteman Air Force Base, deploying the same class of bombs used against nuclear sites, in a strike ordered by the head of U.S. Central Command, General Cooper.However, Iran claimed on Monday that the US rescue operation deep in its territory may have concealed a broader covert goal, calling it a “deception and escape mission” and claiming it could have been a cover for “the theft of enriched uranium,” even as Washington maintained that the operation was an intelligence-based extraction operation and “one of the most daring search and rescue operations in US history.”
