For Iran, capturing an American fighter pilot – on top of downing an F15-E Strike Eagle – represents the ultimate prize. Photo / Getty Images
The shock news a US fighter jet had been shot out of the sky and crashed to the ground in Iran first came in the most mundane fashion – via a state television broadcast.
A bespectacled female anchor, veiled in black, buzzed on to screens today to deliver a 36-second message that an American pilot had ejected from their aircraft – a last-resort safety measure to escape a crashing plane.
“If you capture the enemy pilot or pilots alive and hand them over to the police, you will receive a precious prize,” she thundered, sitting ramrod-straight against a blue backdrop.
A patriotic wartime anthem from the 1980s Iran-Iraq war – used in this conflict to inspire the public to unite against “foreign invasion” – swelled behind her stern voice, capturing the attention of the masses at home.
Abroad, too, her message caught on like wildfire, as clips of Iran’s claim suggesting it had downed an enemy US fighter jet emerged on the internet.
Was it true? Was it not? Had Iran really shot down an American military jet, or had it malfunctioned and crashed?
Questions swirled over what really happened, and doubts were valid. Since the US and Israel went to war on February 28 against Iran, the latter has – falsely – claimed multiple times that it successfully shot down US fighter jets.
Plus, as with all conflicts, wartime propaganda is often riddled with exaggerations as it seeks to intimidate the enemy.
But then US officials began confirming that one US F-15E Strike Eagle had indeed been shot down today (Friday local time).
After five explosive weeks of war, this amounted to one of the biggest blows for the Americans, acknowledging their first fighter jet to be lost over Iran, with the fate of the crew unclear.
That itself launched yet another frenzy. Did the two-member crew survive, and could the US locate and rescue them before the Iranians find them?
Time was ticking for the airmen, whose whereabouts and status remained unknown.
US helicopters and at least one other fighter jet were scrambled to mountainous southwestern Iran to launch an emergency search-and-rescue mission.
Videos of a US C-130 aircraft refuelling HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters at low altitude began to circulate online – footage that appeared to confirm rescue operations were underway.
By then, Iran had returned to the airwaves, claiming it had indeed captured a US pilot, and published images allegedly showing the wreckage of the downed US jet.
In those pictures, jagged shards of metal, some with blackened corners, were strewn on the ground.
Military experts rushed to analyse the images, noting the debris did seem to be from an F-15E Strike Eagle that belongs to the United States Air Force’s 494th Fighter Squadron, based at RAF Lakenheath in East Anglia, England.
In just one afternoon, the stakes of war dramatically changed, given the prospect that the American pilots could be potentially alive inside Iran.
For Tehran, successfully capturing an American fighter pilot – on top of downing one of the most advanced jets in US military history – would be the ultimate prize.
And a US prisoner of war would provide the Iranian regime with even more leverage, after one of its Iraqi militias kidnapped Shelly Kittleson, an American journalist, in Baghdad.
The US now risked galvanising the wider Iranian public in a new way, uniting against a common enemy after weeks of bombings.
That would, ironically, be the opposite of what the US initially hoped for – that its military campaign and multiple assassinations of regime leaders would prompt a popular uprising against Tehran.
What began solely as a relentless air campaign by the US and Israel has suddenly moved closer to the ground in an unprecedented escalation, with the official mobilisation of Iran’s population across its provinces.
Images of armed civilians have already circulated online. If well-co-ordinated with local authorities, this could ripple across Iran with potentially far-reaching consequences.
As the sun disappeared and evening set across the Middle East, there was a glimmer of hope. US and Israeli officials said one of the two crew members had been successfully recovered from Iranian soil.
But Iran continued to seize its moment of glory, with state media crowing: “Iranian Forces Foil US Rescue Bid For Downed Fighter Jet Pilot”.
Mohammad Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, even took to X to mock the US in English: “This brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded from ‘regime change’ to ‘Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?’
“Wow. What incredible progress. Absolute geniuses,” he added with a pleading face emoji.
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