Mr. Trump: The F-15 fighter was shot down by an Iranian shoulder-fired missile

“They used shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles with heat-seeking probes and needed luck to hit the target. Iran hit the fighter, the bullet was sucked into the engine,” US President Donald Trump said during a press conference at the White House on April 6.

President Trump affirmed that he made the risky decision to direct the US military to take all necessary measures to rescue the pilots. “This operation could have killed 100 US soldiers, instead of just 1-2 people,” he said.

During the first rescue of the pilot, the US helicopter faced Iranian fire at very close range. The remaining pilot was injured, had to provide first aid and fled from Iranian forces for 48 hours before being rescued.

Mr. Trump said the US deployed a large-scale rescue force to distract Iran. “We want them to think he is somewhere else. Iran has a huge military force near where this pilot is hiding, thousands of people participating in hunting him. So we spread our forces in 7 different places and confused the enemy,” he said.

Iran has not commented on the above information or announced how it shot down the US F-15E fighter. The Iranian army owns many types of shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles, including the 9K32 Strela, 9K38 Igla, Verba series purchased from the Soviet Union and Russia, and the domestic product Misagh.

The American F-15E multi-role fighter was shot down while on a combat mission in Iran on April 3, the two-man crew parachuted into the southern region of Iran. An A-10 attack was also shot down by Iran a few hours later, while supporting search and rescue forces.

The front cabin pilot on the F-15E was evacuated on April 3. The weapons officer climbed the mountainside at an altitude of about 2,100 m to avoid pursuit by Iranian militia. This person was hiding in a ravine and was located by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The US mobilized hundreds of soldiers and elite special forces, along with dozens of aircraft to rescue soldiers trapped in Iran. After reaching the target, they retreated to the field airport to board a plane to leave Iran. However, two MC-130J special transport aircraft encountered problems and could not take off, forcing US commanders to dispatch reserve aircraft to evacuate soldiers in batches.

Reuters Citing unnamed US officials, special forces units destroyed 6 aircraft, including two MC-130J transports and 4 helicopters, before leaving to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands. Meanwhile, the Iranian military announced that its forces shot down two helicopters and a C-130 transport plane participating in the search campaign for the American pilot.

If you include the downed F-15E, the US military has suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in losses just because of a shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missile worth a few thousand dollars, according to CNN.