During the entire gulf war (Iraq, 1990-91), only two F-15s were shot down via surface-to-air engagement. At the time, Baghdad was known to have the highest density of SAM protection out of any city in the world.
An F-15 being shot down in Iran after weeks of strategic bombing of their anti-air defense systems is not a good sign.
show comments
MarkMarine
Military aviators train for this, being alone behind enemy lines (look up SERE school if you’re curious, one of the craziest training courses outside of special forces) and there is a special force just for aviator recovery behind enemy lines, US AirForce Pararescue. Hopefully they’ll get the aviators back quickly, the last thing our country needs is American hostages making this ridiculous war harder to stop.
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soupfordummies
At what point is congress gonna grow a spine and retake their power? Every day the goalposts just get moved a little farther.
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Ms-J
Maybe they shouldn't be attacking Iran? Duhhhhhh.
pwarner
I hope the aviators are OK, and also hope whoever they were bombing are also OK.
I do wonder if Iran finds them first, will they treat them better than the US treated survivors of the ship sunk by a US torpedo in the Indiana Ocean?
Why is the US there again? Open up a straight that was open?
Not expecting a reply.
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wesselbindt
The article says this is the first jet that was shot down by enemy fire this war, but this confuses me. Was the F35 that was downed a while back friendly fire or something? Are F35s not fighter jets?
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npn
the last time US wanted some country to reset back to Stone Age the same thing happened. turn out those aircrafts are not undefeatable at all.
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vkr2020
apparently, Iran is claiming that the search and rescue helicopter has also been hit by a projectile.
If true I can’t imagine it will play well even among Trumps base. When was the last time a US fighter jet was shot down? 1999 during the intervention in the balkans?
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karp773
Why didn't Iran use its capability to take down enemy jets for an entire month?
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Rover222
There are fairly credible X posts now saying the 2nd pilot has also been rescued. Pretty impressive.
If the pilots are recovered we probably won't hear about it from either side for hours. Iran will want to get them a mile underground before they send out the B-rolls. If recovered by the US, they will want them out of theater before anyone knows better so they can't be targeted.
show comments
verdverm
CNN is reporting this confirmed by three US sources
> One of two US crew members rescued after F-15E jet shot down over Iran
That's quite the partisan title, showing the Guardian's sympathies. To take the opposite perspective: "In another illegal operation, US forces prevent international criminal aviator from answering for his actions against Iran and its people"
Think what you will of the Iranian regime (I'm certainly not a fan) - the US and Israel have no justification, legal or moral, to attack and invade Iran. Doubly so after their co-perpatration of a slew of genocidal actions in Gaza. Which, by the way, are continuing to this day: The gradually narrowing perimeter of concentration, the siege and starvation, the bombing of civilians and remnants of infrastructure...
And as if that's not enough, Israel has now ethnically cleansed South Lebanon, and has begun demolishing all buildings in the southernmost strip of land. Bombings further north are continuing. Government ministers and public figures are already presenting plans for replacing the native villages and towns with renamed Zionist settlements.
llm_nerd
China and Russia have an enormous opportunity to do a lot of in the field testing right now, and they absolutely should be taking advantage of it.
And let me be clear of my position: For the safety and security of planet Earth, large numbers of US aircraft need to be shot out of the sky. Some B52s and maybe a few B2s need to be scattered wreckage.
The US has already bombed 10 countries over the past 12 months. Often grossly illegal operations, having zero support from the civilized world. Like, can anyone on the planet rationalize what position the US is in to be blocking ships to Cuba? There is zero international basis for it, beyond "might makes right".
The US' incredibly stupid idiocracy government openly flouts piracy and looting the resources of foreign nations. They are blowing up ships in international waters with zero pretence, and then double-tapping the survivors (again, grotesque war criming). The head of the "Department of War", a halfwit alcoholic joke of a Fox News host whose own military career is pathetic, spouts absurd war-crime celebrating "got it from ChatGPT" speeches that are a travesty to humanity. An administration filled with utter garbage people, and I mean Trump openly declares that he surrounds himself with losers.
Never, in the history of humanity, has a nation needed to be punched in the mouth with brass knuckles to such an extent.
Man, what an achievement. What a stunning descent to rogue worldwide threat. No nation on Earth deserves a regime change more than that busted shithole.
Do Americans realize this is how most of the world feels about you now? You are not some great freedom fighters or democracy guardians (HAR!), you're a busted criminal idiocracy where vile, vile, incredibly stupid clowns are completely eviscerating what good people spent decades building.
standardUser
Via the NYT:
Mohammad Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament and a key government figure overseeing the war, took to social media to mock the Trump administration as U.S. forces searched for a missing American airman from a downed fighter plane. “This brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded from ‘regime change’ to ‘Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?’”he said in a post on X. “Wow. What incredible progress. Absolute geniuses.”
josefritzishere
This is the dumbest, most pointless military conflict in American history. There is nothing plausible to win, but we can conceivably lose everything. A pyric victory is among the most favorable outcomes. We are led by corrupt imbeciles. I can only hope the outcome includes regime change for the U.S.
show comments
JohnTHaller
Let's hope Iran doesn't follow the "no quarter, no mercy" policy laid out by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. For the unfamiliar, it means executing survivors and surrendering combatants. Aka war crimes.
jeffbee
Large, sophisticated, expensive war assets like fighters and carriers are brilliant against literally cavemen like we've been going around fighting lately, but are quite useless against enemies with even slight technological progress. If this conflict continues we're going to see a lot of US assets in fragments.
During the entire gulf war (Iraq, 1990-91), only two F-15s were shot down via surface-to-air engagement. At the time, Baghdad was known to have the highest density of SAM protection out of any city in the world.
An F-15 being shot down in Iran after weeks of strategic bombing of their anti-air defense systems is not a good sign.
Military aviators train for this, being alone behind enemy lines (look up SERE school if you’re curious, one of the craziest training courses outside of special forces) and there is a special force just for aviator recovery behind enemy lines, US AirForce Pararescue. Hopefully they’ll get the aviators back quickly, the last thing our country needs is American hostages making this ridiculous war harder to stop.
At what point is congress gonna grow a spine and retake their power? Every day the goalposts just get moved a little farther.
Maybe they shouldn't be attacking Iran? Duhhhhhh.
I hope the aviators are OK, and also hope whoever they were bombing are also OK.
I do wonder if Iran finds them first, will they treat them better than the US treated survivors of the ship sunk by a US torpedo in the Indiana Ocean?
One crew member rescued, other is still MIA and being actively searched for https://www.axios.com/2026/04/03/iran-us-fighter-shot-down
Is this not just FAFO?
"Flawless victory" is becoming sillier every day.
Why is the US there again? Open up a straight that was open?
Not expecting a reply.
The article says this is the first jet that was shot down by enemy fire this war, but this confuses me. Was the F35 that was downed a while back friendly fire or something? Are F35s not fighter jets?
the last time US wanted some country to reset back to Stone Age the same thing happened. turn out those aircrafts are not undefeatable at all.
apparently, Iran is claiming that the search and rescue helicopter has also been hit by a projectile.
Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-war-news-2026?mod=WSJ_...
"U.S. Conducting Rescue Operation After Jet Went Down Over Iran"
why is this not showing at top of HN search sorted by date?
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
Also reported at https://theaviationist.com/2026/04/03/iran-f-15e-debris/
https://www.axios.com/2026/04/03/iran-us-fighter-shot-down
If true I can’t imagine it will play well even among Trumps base. When was the last time a US fighter jet was shot down? 1999 during the intervention in the balkans?
Why didn't Iran use its capability to take down enemy jets for an entire month?
There are fairly credible X posts now saying the 2nd pilot has also been rescued. Pretty impressive.
previous conversation at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47626347
If the pilots are recovered we probably won't hear about it from either side for hours. Iran will want to get them a mile underground before they send out the B-rolls. If recovered by the US, they will want them out of theater before anyone knows better so they can't be targeted.
CNN is reporting this confirmed by three US sources
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/03/politics/us-fighter-jet-iran
[dupe] Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47626347
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47627182
> One of two US crew members rescued after F-15E jet shot down over Iran
That's quite the partisan title, showing the Guardian's sympathies. To take the opposite perspective: "In another illegal operation, US forces prevent international criminal aviator from answering for his actions against Iran and its people"
Think what you will of the Iranian regime (I'm certainly not a fan) - the US and Israel have no justification, legal or moral, to attack and invade Iran. Doubly so after their co-perpatration of a slew of genocidal actions in Gaza. Which, by the way, are continuing to this day: The gradually narrowing perimeter of concentration, the siege and starvation, the bombing of civilians and remnants of infrastructure...
And as if that's not enough, Israel has now ethnically cleansed South Lebanon, and has begun demolishing all buildings in the southernmost strip of land. Bombings further north are continuing. Government ministers and public figures are already presenting plans for replacing the native villages and towns with renamed Zionist settlements.
China and Russia have an enormous opportunity to do a lot of in the field testing right now, and they absolutely should be taking advantage of it.
And let me be clear of my position: For the safety and security of planet Earth, large numbers of US aircraft need to be shot out of the sky. Some B52s and maybe a few B2s need to be scattered wreckage.
The US has already bombed 10 countries over the past 12 months. Often grossly illegal operations, having zero support from the civilized world. Like, can anyone on the planet rationalize what position the US is in to be blocking ships to Cuba? There is zero international basis for it, beyond "might makes right".
The US' incredibly stupid idiocracy government openly flouts piracy and looting the resources of foreign nations. They are blowing up ships in international waters with zero pretence, and then double-tapping the survivors (again, grotesque war criming). The head of the "Department of War", a halfwit alcoholic joke of a Fox News host whose own military career is pathetic, spouts absurd war-crime celebrating "got it from ChatGPT" speeches that are a travesty to humanity. An administration filled with utter garbage people, and I mean Trump openly declares that he surrounds himself with losers.
Never, in the history of humanity, has a nation needed to be punched in the mouth with brass knuckles to such an extent.
Man, what an achievement. What a stunning descent to rogue worldwide threat. No nation on Earth deserves a regime change more than that busted shithole.
Do Americans realize this is how most of the world feels about you now? You are not some great freedom fighters or democracy guardians (HAR!), you're a busted criminal idiocracy where vile, vile, incredibly stupid clowns are completely eviscerating what good people spent decades building.
Via the NYT: Mohammad Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament and a key government figure overseeing the war, took to social media to mock the Trump administration as U.S. forces searched for a missing American airman from a downed fighter plane. “This brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded from ‘regime change’ to ‘Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?’”he said in a post on X. “Wow. What incredible progress. Absolute geniuses.”
This is the dumbest, most pointless military conflict in American history. There is nothing plausible to win, but we can conceivably lose everything. A pyric victory is among the most favorable outcomes. We are led by corrupt imbeciles. I can only hope the outcome includes regime change for the U.S.
Let's hope Iran doesn't follow the "no quarter, no mercy" policy laid out by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. For the unfamiliar, it means executing survivors and surrendering combatants. Aka war crimes.
Large, sophisticated, expensive war assets like fighters and carriers are brilliant against literally cavemen like we've been going around fighting lately, but are quite useless against enemies with even slight technological progress. If this conflict continues we're going to see a lot of US assets in fragments.