US President Donald Trump announced the rescue of a missing American pilot on Sunday, calling it “one of the most daring search and rescue operations in US history” amid rising tensions with Iran. In his statement, Trump said the US military recovered a senior officer, a colonel, who had been stranded behind enemy lines in mountainous Iranian terrain after his aircraft went down. The president said the officer, though wounded, was now “safe and sound.”
Trump described the mission as involving multiple aircraft and extensive oversight and planning by senior US military leaders, and he said it was carried out without any American casualties. The rescue follows reports that Iran shot down two US military aircraft on Friday — an F-15E Strike Eagle and an A-10 Thunderbolt II. The missing officer was believed to be part of the F-15 crew.
The president also said a separate mission the previous day had recovered another American pilot, a development kept confidential at the time to avoid jeopardising the second operation. He called the twin rescues unprecedented, saying it was the first time two US pilots had been retrieved from deep inside hostile territory in separate missions.
Emphasising US military capability, Trump said the operations demonstrated “overwhelming air dominance” over Iranian skies and reiterated that the United States would “never leave an American warfighter behind.” There was no immediate response from Iranian authorities to the president’s claims.
