U.S. fighter jet shot down in Iran, search underway for crew
Posted by BabylonianWeeb@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 79 comments
Posted by BabylonianWeeb@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 79 comments
That_taj@reddit
With every embarrassment to the next, this administration proves it has no idea what it’s doing and throwing money and treasure in this pit of a war for Israel.
If Iran actually captures a US pilot, it will be a huge PR disaster. And I really doubt we’d be able to get them back unless the war ends.
photochadsupremacist@reddit
They have definitely been captured.
procgen@reddit
Guess not lol
photochadsupremacist@reddit
Only took 10 planes/helicopters/drones and a quite a few casualties. Huge win for the US.
procgen@reddit
0 casualties in their rescue. The operation was actually quite wild, it's stunning that the US managed to pull it off.
photochadsupremacist@reddit
Surely you don't believe that?
Sufficient_Bite_4127@reddit
you are so brave to be talking like that in this comment thread when you were the one proven wrong.
procgen@reddit
Surely that isn't the best you've got?
azure_beauty@reddit
Iran couldn't even find its own president when he crashed.
Not saying it's impossible, but the plane made it pretty far south, and the Americans have been searching intensely. One has reportedly been saved, and the second is still out there. Realistically if the IRGC wants to get them they have to hope someone locally grabs them.
Sufficient_Bite_4127@reddit
they downvoted you, but America prevailed
azure_beauty@reddit
Lol I love this place.
Sufficient_Bite_4127@reddit
both rescued!
Firecracker048@reddit
Iran has stated a reward for capture. They definitely haven't yet
GianfrancoZoey@reddit
Israeli sources (I know) are saying one of the pilots was successfully rescued
Worth_Garbage_4471@reddit
Happened in both the Gulf wars, wasn't a big deal
Turkey-Scientist@reddit
Special Combat Excursion
Uuuuuii@reddit
Ford F350 Special Combat Excursion available now
DanoPinyon@reddit
This is great for the Mad King - one more day that the Epstein Files are not in the headlines. What other wars can He start to keep the Epstein Files, failed wars, killing Americans, concentration camps, etc out of the headlines?
tsardonicpseudonomi@reddit
Can we stop with this Epstein crap? None of them are scared and none care. They won't be held accountable. Ever.
This isn't a distraction. Stop resist libbing through life and learn a thing.
DanoPinyon@reddit
No.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Found the con disruption account, guys!
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Maybe_this_time_fr@reddit
Dumbass really thought they could make people forget about the files.
tsardonicpseudonomi@reddit
The Epstein class won't magically hold itself accountable. You're right, I'm not a liberal. Though you are wrong about my ideology. Unlike you, little lib, I'm not a right-wing loser. Bye bye.
Maybe_this_time_fr@reddit
Bro is unironically telling people to ignore the Esptein Files 😭. Actual piece of shit.
glowinggoo@reddit
Wasn't he lining up Cuba as the next conversation starter already?
Halfmoonhero@reddit
I actually think they just really fucked Uk with this war. They assumed they would do a decapitation strike and that would be it. Now he’s stuck in a really complex situation and there isn’t a way out, instead he’s on TV every day going on about UK and France and bad allies and not really addressing the actual matter. I don’t see a way out and things are probably going to get worse before they get better. If this carries on many months, I actually do see other countries putting too much pressure on Iran to get the spice flowing again and Trump would if curse see it as a win some way. If China or the UK manages to broker a deal for everyone it will he extremely embarrassing for the administration.
glowinggoo@reddit
Considering your flag, I really like this typo. (Took me a few minutes to realize it's a typo.)
Halfmoonhero@reddit
Haha so many typos! I will Leave as is
Hamiltonblewit@reddit
The first confirmed shoot down this conflict, while we’ve seen it occur in Iraq multiple times, this is going to be extremely testy since Trump is stupid enough to justify boots on the ground if the pilot is mistreated
Although I really doubt Iran would do that and would rather use him as a bargaining chip, how far they’ll get with Trump, we can’t really tell at this point since it’s clear the man is genuinely carrying this war out because he wants to and not for any real political benefits.
wet_suit_one@reddit
Not the first. The first by Iran. I think it was the Kuwaitis who shot down 3 F-15s. Friendly fire accident of course, but actual bona fide shoot downs all the same.
photochadsupremacist@reddit
The ghost of Kuwait is 3-0
BarbequedYeti@reddit
Better be a reference character in the next dark souls game.
glowinggoo@reddit
Since the next Ace Combat game has the protagonist be the Ghost of Kyiv (with the serials filed off, of course), I hope I can see the Ghost of Kuwait in a DLC or something.
Express_Spirit_3350@reddit
There was a F35 shot down too. It hard landed, it was taken down.
Hamiltonblewit@reddit
I would identify a shoot down as crashing within enemy territory, but that isn’t ideal even if only one has been targeted so far
Express_Spirit_3350@reddit
The plane was flying, it was shot at, it had to go down.
It pretty literally got "shot down". There would be a little plane painted on the side of an aircraft.
milton117@reddit
Where was the proof for this?
Express_Spirit_3350@reddit
Apart from the US saying the plane had to land and the pilot was stable or something?
2dudesinapod@reddit
They claim it hard landed and then they flew SAR above eastern Saudi Arabia for many hours that day.
Same with the F16 that went down in the Persian gulf yesterday.
Hamiltonblewit@reddit
Using Iraq as a benchmark, we still lost more to friendly fire and Iraqi enemy fire, but nonetheless, losses are amplified on social media and this war + the Trump administration is deeply unpopular so it would be a PR disaster either way.
crusadertank@reddit
I think the difference also is that people expected losses in the Iraq war.
Since the Iraq war however the US military has built some kind of myth of invincibility. They have conducted many operations with quite low casualties and you see many assuming that the US can conduct the operation without any or next to no losses
Its also why I think the capture of Maduro being so successful backfired on the US, as it pushed Trump to think he can get away with it again in Iran
BendicantMias@reddit
A limited incursion to rescue him would be great - it'll gift Iran with even more 'bargaining chips'. Iran will even be able to decide exactly where they want the Americans to land simply by choosing where to hold him. Set up a trap, taunt Trump with a video or two and wait for the orange idiot to be dumb enough to fall for the obvious bait.
Majestic-Effort-541@reddit
It looks like an episode from SNL or South Park.
Asymmetrical warfare was never a strong suit of the US.
The most important thing is that the US doesn’t have the stomach for this kind of war at least not one where it can take heavy casualties like Iran does.
If just two American pilots are captured alive by Iran. Trump will face massive backlash from the American public.
More than 3000 Iranians have already died.
If even 300 American soldiers come home in coffins, that would likely be enough to stop the war before it really begins.
And it’s not surprising trump has fired nearly every competent bureaucrat and military leader surrounding himself instead with yes-men and nincompoops.
Biuku@reddit
I’ve reflected a lot on this as a Canadian. If the US did cross the line and seek to take us militarily, we have the stomach to attrition the criminals for decades. 40 million of us. Even if the US could commit 1 million troops … they don’t want to be there. It’s nothing like dropping bombs through a TV screen. Every stroller could be a bomb, every pensioner could be a killer, every pretty girl a martyr. A people facing obliteration will fight until the last one is dead, each taking out as many enemy as they can before biting it. The US could never rally enough support to see hundreds of thousands of body bags sent home. It would quit a war on Canada less than a year in. Without holding ground, they could never take our country.
trustmebro5@reddit
Lol. No offense but realistically Canada would surrender in the first week.
Biuku@reddit
I love comments like this because it reassures me that what I read about Americans under-reports the reality.
The US has a lot of "sky power", and its people like things that go boom. In terms of performance it loses almost every attempt to hold ground against desperately poor third-world populations that are not backed by great powers. The US fails and quits every time.
We're not poor. Today, Canada is the moral leader of the free world; the US and its people are an anacrhonism of stupidity, failure and ethical failure -- by its former allies and enemies alike. Canadians are nice, but we grow up drawing blood on ice and learning to survive where the environment has 10 ways to kill. We look like Americans, and we use their ignorance. Our neighbourhoods look like American neighbourhoods. As US banks and ist monetary system collapsed in 2008 ours became trusted globally.
So on the day the Orks choose to cross here we wouldn't throw a rock. Our military would melt into towns and the wilderness. We'd let the Orks spread out -- after all, they either hold the land, or we remain free. But we would pull the lever we've been waiting to pull -- crush the $40 trillion US debt obligation, destroy the USD, and collapse the US monetary regime to choke its economy and military, and trigger hyperinflation. Not only would NATO side with us, but in a way similar to the Western powers allying with the USSR against evil in one era, all great powers would ally against American evil. A second front from China would become a remote threat.
There's a reason the US loses every war where it attempts to hold ground. Months after the Orks cross over, suddenly, they would start dying. Go for a jog, sniped. Use a jeep, IED. See a stroller, blown up. Not a single Canadian soldier anywhere. America has no visible command structure to target. Can't locate the strongholds. Yet still, a people facing obliteration keep fighting back. Keep sending home bodies to attrition the stretched out occupiers.
We'd die too -- at a higher rate, which opens our front on the hearts and minds of Americans. All day every day phones across the US would light up with videos of the murders of people who look like Americans on streets that look like America -- tastefully interspersed with close ups of dead American Orks. As Americans at home turn on their soldiers, morale collapses amongst the Orks, who lose friends daily outside their base, whose friends and families back home are ashamed of them, and who never understood why they were there in the first place.
With the US economy crushed by the monetary lever, trade all but impossible, and US power projection going the wrong way, China's threat of the second front gets closer. The union of the states comes into question as the US crosses 100,000 dead and a half-million missing parts.
Then, one day, the US has had enough. It cuts its losses and with a brave face declares it has met its objectives and the troops are coming home.
And that would be the final mistake of the United States. Global cries of Fuck America cry out from every city. Smelling the blood first spilled by Canadians, the world finally says the quiet part out loud -- America is evil and must end. A massively overwhelming multinational force crosses into the US from Canada, and in marine landings, and rolls through the land cleansing Earth of every memory of that giant shitstain.
Across the world people cheer, Halleluja! Halleluja! The United States is Dead!
type_E@reddit
Are you sure you thought through the how's?
trustmebro5@reddit
Didn’t read all that but words don’t change base reality.
Biuku@reddit
That’s correct. You will still feel very powerful if you don’t face reality.
trustmebro5@reddit
Glad we agree.
Diaperedsnowy@reddit
We aren't like Northern Ireland.
We arent going to be bombing public buildings and for sure we arent suicide bombing with old ladies.
Now would be destroy power and pipelines feeding the usa. Ya that would actually have effects to the usa.
Biuku@reddit
Well, I definitely didn’t intend to speak for Greenland. But my point is that the US must see that victory is impossible. Moving 1 million troops into Canada is feasible, but is not remotely close to conquering Canada. It would be the preamble to book 1 in the 12 volume series describing all the ways to die in Canada.
pass_nthru@reddit
trump will just pull a putin move and not announce casualties and hide their return in the dead of night in unmarked vans
Hamiltonblewit@reddit
Their losses are actually less worse than Iraq if we’re judging from the amount of air frames lost (with this being the only shoot down from Iran) but it’s clear the American people have no appetite for boots and the ground, this war is unpopular to begin with since there’s no clear justification.
People place the American military on a higher standard and expect no losses, but this is as good as it gets when we compare this to other conflicts where we see relatively peer conflicts out there having more losses within a shorter period of time.
Majestic-Effort-541@reddit
I 100% agree but you need to understand how the US military markets itself especially when compared to Iran
Iraq was different it had around 300 combat aircraft. Irans air force is practically non-existent.
And as I said the US doesnt have the stomach to take casualties.
Even 10 dead American soldiers is a lot for the US public but it’s basically nothing for Iran.
TrizzyG@reddit
Iraq was a country with 1/5 the population of Iran and less in both 1991 and 2003, and even if Iran had 300 relatively modern aircraft they would have been destroyed the same way as in Iraq. As you can see, nobody is shooting down US aircraft with their own aircraft (except FF same as before).
Iran up to the opening of hostilities has always been considered a pretty strong regional power with a multitude of capabilities that arguably make them the strongest opponent the US faced directly since 1945. However, it seems now everyone wants to talk about sanctions this and isolation that just to make some ridiculous contrived comparison in order to make the US casualties look more embarassing against a supposedly weak nation.
The funny part is those same sanctions had been laughed at for years as being ineffective owing to the growing relationship between Iran and Russia/China.
Rovcore001@reddit
That's a rather generous use of 'directly' - most of the fighting here is being done by people behind screens and consoles in relative safety. The first gulf war when Iraq had the world's 4th largest army would be a better comparator.
BendicantMias@reddit
The Iraq 4th placed army thing is wrong to begin with. Everyone always forgets India. They're the ones usually in 4th place after the US, China and Russia. They've won most of the wars they've fought too.
TrizzyG@reddit
Iran has the world's 8th largest today amidst a world where many more nations have economies and populations to support larger militaries than in 1991, so its really not that different. Now take into consideration Iran's military is perched in much more suitable terrain, and is distributed differently by having far more rockets/missiles/AD and its at the least comparable to Iraq '91, and Id argue Iran today is at a much better advantage.
Iraq '91 was quite degraded in a lot of ways off the back of a 10 year war and extremely low morale, rebellion at home and a massive gap in abilities compared to the US.
You could probably make a better argument for Vietnam being a stronger adversary, but ultimately the US was constrained politically in that fight and they pretty much won all of their conventional battles. Plus, the US military in the Vietnam era was substantially different compared to even the 80s.
Hamiltonblewit@reddit
It’s not we don’t have the stomach, but rather; the American government fights useless wars so it’s just impossible to justify boots on the ground and large losses since people will start to ask why we are even there in the first place.
If Americans are actually fighting for a cause their people believe in, their politicians wouldn't have to fear the consequences of putting boots on the ground.
BendicantMias@reddit
That IS not having the stomach. Unless someone invades the American heartland, which no one has even threatened to anyway so it's a moot point.
Hamiltonblewit@reddit
No other countries aside from Russia (Syria) in recent memory can even enforce such a large military expedition outside of their borders so there’s just no comparison to be made. The U.S is just the only ones capable of committing this much firepower to another region with limited troop deployment so it finds itself having to fight conflicts without getting their civilian populace too involved. If Russia or China is capable of fielding minor conflicts outside of their region on a frequent basis, it’ll have to adopt a similar strategy due to the information period in this age exposing casualty figures quickly.
BendicantMias@reddit
It puts out something. Whether those figures are accurate or not is another story - https://theintercept.com/2026/04/01/iran-war-us-casualty-numbers-trump-hegseth/
Anyway, that still doesn't refute the point that the US is allergic to casualties.
BendicantMias@reddit
Other conflicts involved actual ground operations. The US has yet to do that here. If Iran does capture pilots and manages to use them to bait the orange idiot into sending troops on the ground, this will get much messier very quick.
It's ironically Trumps' own cowardice that's keeping US casualties low. For all his bravado, the man really does earn his reputation as a 'chicken'.
Hamiltonblewit@reddit
Believe me, I, perfectly aware that any ground incursion would be a blood bath. America will need at least 600k-1.3m troops over years of conflict to even pacify Iran assuming it’s an best case scenario outside of civil war or regime change, which even Trump simply cannot commit himself to.
Express_Spirit_3350@reddit
There was a F35 shot down too. It hard landed, it was taken down.
Minista_Pinky@reddit
Asymmetrical warfare is never good for any military
seiryuu-abi@reddit
You know what? He once said something along the lines of how he could shoot someone in broad daylight (something like that) and people would still vote for him. And I actually believe Trump.
His people will fall in line in a few days on why this war (which they were refusing to call a war in the beginning) is necessary. Maybe if their own relative in the military dies or something they will be upset but other than that probably not.
Diaperedsnowy@reddit
He has already been elected.
The people who voted for him are of no consequence to trump. He will do the same either way.
imunfair@reddit
But Trump said in his special nightly speech that all their air defense was gone!
Although that claim was more plausible than his statement that there was no inflation and the market had made 53 new highs or whatever so the market was going strong despite being down 10% from ATHs.
That said, it was an F-15E and not an F35, so it's not a big surprise they'd be able to shoot one down, if it was an F35 like Iran originally claimed that would have been far more embarrassing.
Hamiltonblewit@reddit
Probably one of their mobile systems that was hidden, though I would say aircraft losses are light despite Iran being the strongest adversary the U.S had faced in a while. Don’t know why there are so much short altitude footages of these aircraft’s in Iran though.
imunfair@reddit
Probably for the same reason Russia flies low in Ukraine - flying high it's easy to get tagged by radar, and it's likely they still have some S300 systems squirreled away somewhere that they could use to do a hit-and-run takedown like Ukraine has done several times in the past four years.
cmrd_msr@reddit
Russia doesn't fly over Ukraine at all.
UMPKs are launched from deep behind enemy lines, over Russia.
A pilot is a valuable asset, and a plane costs a fortune. Why take the risk?
imunfair@reddit
I guess that depends on your definition of "Russia". Either way, what I said happened did indeed happen several times, feel free to look it up since you don't seem to follow the war closely enough to be familiar with it.
cmrd_msr@reddit
Not a single Russian aircraft was shot down over Ukrainian territory. Or over new territories, either. I can responsibly state this.
UMPKs are launched from deep behind enemy lines.
On several occasions, the Ukrainians took daring actions, deploying medium- and long-range air defense systems almost to the border and shooting down aircraft over Russia. This happened.
imunfair@reddit
They did it 2-3 years into the war too, might have been with Patriot batteries and not S300 by that point though.
cmrd_msr@reddit
No, in the second or third year of the war, I only remember cases of patriots being pulled up to the front and shooting down a plane on our side.
The patriots were punished for that, if my memory serves me right. They were pulled too close.
TachiH@reddit
Seems odd that search and rescue could find one pilot and not the other, surely they would have ejected at least somewhat close together? I don't imagine once the canopy is gone it would be possible to coast much further. I would expect the other pilot didn't make it.
aravena@reddit
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-fighter-jet-shot-down-over-iran-search-underway-crew-us-official-says-2026-04-03/
For those that don't want to hurdle paywalls
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