An F-15E Strike Eagle. It was not clear exactly how the jet was downed, though Iran said it had shot it down. Photograph: Ben Margot/APView image in fullscreenAn F-15E Strike Eagle. It was not clear exactly how the jet was downed, though Iran said it had shot it down. Photograph: Ben Margot/APSearch for missing US crew member of downed fighter jet enters second dayMilitary pilots said F-15 crew member would be trying to hide for as long as possible from the Iranian military
US search and rescue efforts for the missing second crew member of the downed F-15E fighter jet continued into a second day as Iran came under heavy bombing and Israel extended the war in Lebanon.
A pilot had been rescued on Friday after the F-15E Strike Eagle became the first US plane to be downed over Iran during the five week long war, but the second of the two strong crew has not been accounted for.
Iranian media released pictures of a wreckage, including a distinctive F-15 tail fin, and a used ejector seat on Friday, with state media and businesses in the country offering a bounty if the missing crew member could be captured.
The US air force launched a massive search and rescue effort, using low flying Pave Hawk helicopters and specialist C-130 Hercules transport.
View image in fullscreenIranian media released pictures of a wreckage, including a distinctive F-15 tail fin, and a used ejector seat on Friday. Photograph: Press TV XMilitary pilots said the missing F-15 crew member would be trying to hide for as long as possible from the Iranian military and potentially seeking to transmit their location relative to a known secret point in the hope that US special forces coming in via helicopter would be able to rescue them.
It was not clear exactly how the F-15 was downed, though Iran said it had shot it down. The US military did not publicly comment, while US president, Donald Trump, said on Friday the episode would not affect efforts to negotiate a peace settlement with Iran.
A Pave Hawk helicopter was hit by fire from the ground during the rescue, though it was able to fly away successfully. Another combat plane, an A-10 Warthog attack aircraft, crashed near the strait of Hormuz with Iran claiming it had shot it down. Its pilot was rescued.
Though Iran has been repeatedly bombed by the US and Israel, with several facilities at Mahshahr, a petrochemical complex, in Khuzestan province, targeted on Saturday, the F-15 and A-10 incidents show that Iran can still inflict damage on the US air force.
A building close to Iran’s civil Bushehr nuclear power plant was struck on Saturday morning, killing a guard, Iran said. Later the IAEA atomic energy watchdog said it had been informed by Iran of the incident, the fourth in recent weeks, and added “no increase in radiation levels was reported”.
View image in fullscreenThe Shahid Beheshti university’s laboratory in Tehran was destroyed in an airstrike. Photograph: Majid Saeedi/Getty ImagesIsrael also said it had conducted a wave of strikes on Tehran overnight against what it said were air defence, ballistic missile storage and weapons development facilities. Several heavy blasts were heard in the capital at about 7.30am in the morning in attacks that Iranians described as terrifying.
Iran’s foreign minister also said that Tehran had not – as had been reported in the US overnight – walked away from possible peace talks in Pakistan. Abbas Araghchi, posting on social media, said that Iran’s position had been misrepresented.
“We are deeply grateful to Pakistan for its efforts and have never refused to go to Islamabad. What we care about are the terms of a conclusive and lasting END to the illegal war that is imposed on us,” he wrote on X.
Trump said that Iran needed to be ready to reopen the strait of Hormuz to oil tankers and merchant shipping and repeated that he had given Tehran a deadline to comply and threatened an unspecified escalation.
“Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out - 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!” he said in a social media post.
The US president had originally threatened to bomb Iran’s power plants if it did not accept a peace agreements he proposed, and has periodically repeated that threat while extending the deadline.
Further waves of air transports from military bases in the US to the Middle East have been monitored by aviation enthusiasts since the start of April, raising fresh speculation the Trump may order a ground deployment, to seize the Kharg Island oil terminal, islands in the straits of Hormuz or seize Iran’s nuclear material.
At least 1,900 people have been killed and 20,000 injured in Iran since the start of the war, according to estimates from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, though precise figures are scarce.
View image in fullscreenA damaged bedroom in a building struck in an Israeli airstrike in the southern port city of Tyre in Lebanon on Saturday. Photograph: Mohammed Zaatari/APIsrael attacked Tyre, south Lebanon, after telling residents to leave. One missile destroyed an 11 storey building north-east of the city, a second partially destroyed a five storey structure and a third hit the Burj al-Shamali Palestinian camp south of the city. Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon and displaced more than 1.1 million people. Hezbollah sites in Beirut was also targeted on Friday and overnight, Israel said.
Missiles continued to be fired into Israel. Four people were lightly wounded in three different cities across central Israel and Iran was accused of using cluster munitions, whose use is banned by many countries, in the attacks. One was reported to have landed in a car park near Israel’s Kirya miltary headquarters in Tel Aviv.
