🇮🇷 Recapping the past seventy two hours: a F 15 was shot down over Iran.
Both crew members ejected safely.
Right away, search and rescue teams went in: combat king tankers refueled the rescue helicopters at low altitude while A-10 Warthogs flew escort and fought off ground threats.
They pulled the pilot out quickly.
One rescue helicopter and one A-10 took damage, but everyone on board made it home safely.
The weapons systems officer had a much tougher time.
He evaded capture for over thirty six hours in the rugged mountains.
Then the Night Stalkers, fresh from their recent work in Venezuela, flew in with special operations C-130s carrying Little Bird helicopters.
They set up a bold forward refueling site deep inside Iran, right near the uranium facilities.
Despite the IRGC trying to stop them, they fought their way in, reached the airman, pulled him out, destroyed two stuck C-130s, and got him home.
Source: Source: C.W. Lemoine
🇺🇸🇮🇷 The full story of the rescue is even more extraordinary than we knew...
Call sign "Dude 44."
An Air Force colonel. Shot down 200 miles inside Iran.
He ejected wounded, climbed a mountain ridge, wedged himself into a rock crevice, and radioed three words: "God is good."
Washington wasn't sure it was real. Officials initially suspected an Iranian trap and scrambled to verify he was alive.
For 48 hours, Iranian forces, IRGC units, Basij militias, and civilian volunteers hunted him with helicopters and drones while a provincial governor offered bounties.
The WSO could hear them getting closer.
The rescue involved 100 special operators, four B-1 bombers dropping nearly 100 two-thousand-pound bombs, MQ-9 Reapers striking fighters approaching within kilometers of his position, and a CIA deception operation that spread false intel inside Iran claiming the pilot had already been found and was being moved overland.
The first rescue attempt failed.
Two helicopters took fire, crews wounded, forced to land in Kuwait.
Two MC-130Js landed at a makeshift base inside Iran and got stuck in the sand.
Commanders flew in three smaller replacement aircraft, extracted everyone, and destroyed $200M worth of aircraft and helicopters on the ground.
Trump's order when Hegseth confirmed the pilot's identity:
"We have to get him."
Source: WSJ