The Wall Street Journal reports that the downed pilot was injured when the fighter jet he was in crashed in Iran, without specifying exactly what the "daring move" he had to make during the rescue entails.
Officials said U.S. MQ-9 "Ripper" drones fired on Iranians trying to capture the downed American pilot during his approximately 36 hours in a mountainous region of Iran before he was rescued.
The Wall Street Journal reported that dozens of aircraft provided cover for a commando unit that landed to pick up the pilot, although US forces did not encounter significant resistance on the ground.
The New York Times reports that two transport planes, which were supposed to transport the rescued pilot and commandos from Iran, got stuck on a temporary runway in that country and had to be blown up, and that three new planes were sent to Iran to get the pilot and soldiers out, it reports. RTS.
The US military has blown up transport planes to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands. Images from Iran indicate that the planes are stuck on a temporary runway set up by the US military in a remote part of the country.
According to the New York Times, hundreds of special forces soldiers participated in the rescue mission, and an American officer who was rescued in Iran was transferred to Kuwait for treatment.
CIA deeply involved
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was deeply involved in the mission to rescue a weapons systems officer from a downed F-15E fighter jet in Iran, a senior official in US President Donald Trump's administration said.
Before locating the pilot, the CIA launched a deception campaign, spreading the word inside Iran that US forces had already found him and were moving him on land for evacuation from the country, an official told CBS News.
While the deception operation was underway, the agency used its capabilities to track a crew member, who was in a mountain crevasse.
The official said the CIA shared the crew member's exact location with the Pentagon and the White House and that when Trump ordered an emergency rescue mission, the CIA continued to provide information in real time, CBS reports.
The pilot was rescued by elite commandos.
Elite commandos from Navy SEAL Team 6 were tasked with extracting the pilot, while US attack aircraft dropped bombs and opened fire on Iranian convoys to keep them away, the New York Times reported, citing an unidentified official.
The American weapons systems officer was wounded after the ejection but was still able to walk, avoiding being trapped in the mountains for more than a day, according to the Axios news agency, which cited a US official.
The pilot was armed with a gun.
The unidentified pilot was equipped with a pistol, a signal, and a secure communication device to coordinate with rescuers. American commandos closing in on the officer fired their weapons to keep Iranian forces away from the rescue site.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed responsibility
The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility for the attack on the American F-15E aircraft, which carried two crew members.
The F-15E pilot ejected safely and was rescued by two military helicopters on the same day, April 3, but the other crew member, a weapons systems officer, was reported missing until this morning.
US President Donald Trump wrote on the Truth Social network this morning that US forces had rescued the second pilot of the downed plane, and that he was injured but alive and well.
