Iran shot down a US fighter jet, writes the American website Axios. The information has not been officially confirmed
According to Axios, the two crew members were wanted by US forces on Friday. US Central Command has not yet released any information.
Iran has shot down an American fighter jet, writes the American website Axios, citing Iranian media and a source familiar with the incident.
According to Axios, an operation is currently underway to locate and rescue the two crew members.
US Central Command has not confirmed the incident. If confirmed, it would be the first time since the start of the war that an American plane has been shot down by enemy fire.
Iranian state media announced the downing of an F-35 jet on Friday, showing images and clips of pieces of the downed plane and one of the ejection seats.
The photos and videos – which have yet to be confirmed as authentic – suggest the pieces actually belong to an F-15 fighter jet.
The photos show part of the “US Air Forces in Europe” logo appearing on the tail of an F-15, as well as red and white stripes across its top.
Another piece of the wreckage — on which the words “CAUTION USE ONLY NON-MAGNETIC FASTENERS” can be read — appears to correspond to a portion of the rear of an F-15, which stretches between one of the two engines and the horizontal stabilizer, CNN writes.
“From the structure, it definitely looks like an F-15, and from the tail markings, it belongs to the 48th Fighter Squadron, based at RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom,” Peter Layton, a researcher at the Griffith Asia Institute and a former Royal Australian Air Force officer, told CNN.
Also, the American publication Stars and Stripes writes, video recordings appeared on social networks that appeared to show a C-130 Hercules transport plane and two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, which the Iranian media said would have participated in the search operations.
The Associated Press reported that Iranian state media were urging residents to hand over any “enemy pilots” to the police and promising a reward to anyone who did so.
The regime in Tehran and the Iranian state media have repeatedly announced the downing of American warplanes, but the Central Command has repeatedly denied the reports as false.
