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.
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’s Khuzestan Province.
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.
Israel was said to be helping the United States with the operation search and rescue operation.
It comes after Iranian officials quickly put a bounty on the crew, calling on civilians to be on the lookout for survivors.
Social media was inundated with images, too, purportedly showing wreckage from the downed aircraft.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that “newly developed and advanced air defenses” had helped down — gloating that it “completely destroyed and crashed.
“The Pentagon and US Central Command haven’t yet commented.
It marks the first time the US has lost aircraft in Iranian territory in the nearly five-week-old war.
