{"id":40185,"date":"2026-04-03T18:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=40185"},"modified":"2026-04-03T18:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:22:10","slug":"us-military-aircraft-spotted-flying-over-iran-as-crew-hunts-for-missing-fighter-pilot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=40185","title":{"rendered":"US military aircraft spotted flying over Iran as crew hunts for missing fighter pilot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2026%2F04%2Fnewspress-collage-aztptqm3t-1775240382282.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall%261775226003\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>US military search and rescue aircraft were spotted flying low over Iran on Friday after an American fighter jet was shot down by the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n<p>Footage circulating on social media, and verified by CNN and New York Times, shows a Lockheed C-130 Hercules jet being tailed closely by two fueling helicopters as they flew over Iran\u2019s Khuzestan Province.<\/p>\n<p>The clip surfaced soon after news broke that a search was underway after just one of the two crew members who ejected from the downed fighter jet had been rescued by US special forces.<\/p>\n<p>The second fighter pilot was still missing.<\/p>\n<p>Israel was said to be helping the United States with the operation search and rescue operation.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>It comes after Iranian officials quickly put a bounty on the crew, calling on civilians to be on the lookout for survivors.<\/p>\n<p>Social media was inundated with images, too, purportedly showing wreckage from the downed aircraft.<\/p>\n<p>The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that \u201cnewly developed and advanced air defenses\u201d had helped down \u2014 gloating that it \u201ccompletely destroyed and crashed.\u201dThe Pentagon and US Central Command haven\u2019t yet commented.<\/p>\n<p>It marks the first time the US has lost aircraft in Iranian territory in the nearly five-week-old war.<\/p>\n<p><em>With Post wires<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/03\/us-news\/us-military-aircraft-spotted-flying-over-iran-as-crew-hunts-for-missing-fighter-pilot\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US military search and rescue aircraft were spotted flying low over Iran on Friday after an American fighter jet was shot down by the Islamic Republic.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}