Today we bring you the inside story of one of the most dangerous rescue missions in modern American military history.

A US fighter jet is shot down.

Two crew members eject over enemy territory.

One is recovered quickly.

The second missing, injured, alone, hiding in the mountains of Iran inside enemy territory.

And as Iranian forces close in with a bounty on his capture, Washington launches a rescue mission so risky that it involved Delta Force, SEAL Team 6, CIA deception teams, bombers in the sky, and commandos on the ground in Iran.

Hello and welcome.

I am Nikita Kapoor and you are watching Decode and in this episode I bring you the full story of the rescue of the decade minute by minute.

This is how America brought its man home.

Friday morning at around 9:42 a.m.

Eastern time, somewhere over Iran, a US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle from the 48th Fighter Wing RAF Leanth is hit by Iranian fire.

The aircraft loses control.

Seconds later, the order comes.

Eject.

Two airmen punch out of the burning jet.

A pilot and a weapons system officer and Air Force colonel both parachute into hostile Iranian territory.

This is a nightmare scenario, viewers.

Every military fears a live American officer behind enemy lines.

Iran knows it.

Washington knows it.

And by this time, Iran has already broadcasted that whoever will capture this American pilot alive will get a prize.

The race begins immediately.

Within minutes, at around 10:15 a.

m.

, US rescue assets find the pilot.

He is extracted quickly, but the second crew member is nowhere to be found.

His parachute landed farther into the mountain belt.

Officials say he was injured during ejection.

Now wounded, he disappears into the rugged terrain.

And this is where the story turns into pure survival.

Instead of staying near the crash site, the colonel does exactly what elite military training teaches.

Survive, evade, resist, escape.

He moves uphill into the cold, into the shadows.

By early afternoon, the officer reaches a rocky ridge line nearly 7,000 ft above sea level.

He hides inside a narrow mountain.

No food, minimal medical support, just a pistol, a communication device, and a tracking beacon.

Imagine that moment, viewers.

Enemy forces searching below, drones overhead, possible injuries from ejection, and absolute silence.

For more than a day, he stays hidden there, completely alone.

Every sound in those mountains could mean the IRGC is getting closer.

Back in Washington, the White House enters full crisis mode.

US President Donald Trump remains in the West Wing, moving between the Oval Office and the dining room, receiving updates by the minute.

By evening, the situation room is active.

This is no longer a simple rescue.

This is now a strategic national emergency because if Iran captures a US colonel alive, the consequences would be explosive.

Now comes the twist.

While military planners assemble a rescue package, at around 8:00 p.

m.

, the CIA launches a deception campaign.

According to US officials, intelligence operatives begin circulating information inside Iran that both crew members have already been rescued by the US.

The goal, throw off the IRGC, force them to search the wrong zones by time.

This is classic intelligence warfare.

And according to reports, this deception operation becomes crucial.

It slows the Iranian manhunt.

Saturday morning at around 6:45 a.

m.

in the morning, the breakthrough finally happens.

After communication from the officer’s device, the CIA pinpoints his exact location.

The coordinates are passed to the military.

Now the mission moves into action phase.

Special operations forces are activated.

Reports say the rescue package includes Army Delta Force and Navy Seal Team 6 backed by massive massive air umbrella.

Hundreds of personnel are involved in this operation.

This is how one of the biggest personal recovery missions of the conflict began.

Now this is where the tension peaks.

American commandos move in.

Aircraft cross into Iranian airspace.

Helicopter transport aircraft, electronic warfare cover, ISR drones, bombers, and as the teams converge on the mountain, US planes begin dropping bombs around the approach roads.

Not random strikes, viewers.

These are corridor cleaning strikes.

The objective is simple.

Make sure Iranian forces do not reach the colonel first.

The mountain becomes a battlefield immediately.

And then another twist.

During the operation, two American special operations aircraft are damaged at a remote air strip inside Iran.

This is huge.

Those planes were meant to extract the commandos and the rescued officer.

Now they cannot be used safely.

The US military makes a brutal decision.

Send replacement aircraft destroy the damaged ones.

Why? Because no advanced American aircraft technology can be allowed to fall into Iranian hands.

The damaged planes are blown up on Iranian soil.

That moment alone tells you how high risk this operation truly was.

Then comes the moment Washington had been waiting for.

The commandos reach the mountain site.

They locate the colonel alive, injured, but alive.

He is secured and rushed toward extraction.

Back at the White House, Donald Trump is reportedly monitoring the mission from the situation room.

And then the message goes out.

We got it.

That is the exact phrase the president later posts on social media.

Replacement aircraft land.

The officer is loaded abroad.

The commandos board.

The mission exits Iranian territory.

The operations in US military history is complete.

No American fertilities and final rescue push.

From a burning F-15 in Iranian skies to a wounded officer hiding inside a mountain in enemy territory to CIA deception to bombs falling over the rescue corridor to aircraft blown up on enemy soil.

This was a mission that played out like a Hollywood war thriller, except this was real.

And now the world knows exactly how the United States of America brought its man back from deep inside Iran.

What do you think about this mission? Tell us in the comment section below.