Trapped in Iran: The Daring Rescue of an F-15 WSO : Explained in Detail\

How did the US pull off one of the most daring rescue operations in history deep behind enemy lines? It comes down to a strict code the US military lives by.

Leave no man behind.

They will literally send dozens of attack helicopters and over a 100 special forces and Delta operators just to bring one person home.

The mission started when an aircraft went down.

After both crew members ejected, the pilot was successfully extracted, but the weapons systems officer was injured and stranded.

His survival training instantly kicked in.

He tked all the way up to a rugged mountainous ridge and activated his beacon just as IRGC militias began closing in the crash site.

The CIA was one step ahead.

They initiated a massive deception tactic, a ruse designed to make the IRGC search entirely the wrong location.

When the enemy forces finally realized they had been tricked, all hell broke loose.

They swarmed the mountainous ridge surrounding the injured officer.

Just in time, special forces swooped in on Little Bird helicopters, laying down heavy covering fire alongside A10 Thunderbolts and MQ9 Reaper drones.

But as they moved toward the extraction point, everything went wrong, proving the military is willing to burn a $100 million aircraft just to save a single fallen comrade.

This is stage one.

When the jet went down, both crew members ejected.

The pilot was recovered within hours, but the weapon systems officer wasn’t so lucky.

Wounded from the ejection, he landed in an incredibly rugged mountainous region.

Look at the map here.

This is the crash site.

And this is exactly where his survival training kicked in.

His immediate objective, get to higher ground.

Despite his injuries, he hiked over 2 mi and scaled a 7,000 ft ridge line.

While dodging capture, he managed to trigger his emergency beacon, pinning US forces so they could begin tracking his location.

But he couldn’t just stay on the radio.

His communication had to be sporadic if he transmitted too often the IRGC’s signals intelligence teams who were actively hunting his frequency would pinpoint his exact coordinates.

Then comes stage two, the CIA’s deception game.

To buy the downed officer time, the CIA launched a massive disinformation campaign inside Iran.

They started leaking rumors that US forces had already found the WSO and were attempting to smuggle him out on the ground.

It worked perfectly.

This phantom ground exfiltration successfully diverted Iranian military resources and attention completely away from the actual extraction site.

That brings us to stage three, the tip of the spear.

It’s 2:00 a.

m.

The skies over southern Isvahan and Kilui are usually dead silent, but tonight the US military’s most elite operators, the Delta Force and Navy Seal Team 6, are launching a massive hellborn assault.

They arrive in MH6 little bird helicopters absolutely armed to the teeth with miniguns and missiles built for agility and tight mountain corners.

Supporting them are the MA60 Black Hawks or Pave Hawks designed to drop in special forces and pull them out.

And they weren’t alone.

Miles above the pitch black mountains, dozens of US military aircraft, including HC130J Combat Kings and EA18 Growlers, cast an invisible net over the region.

They unleash a storm of electronic warfare designed to completely blind Iranian early warning radars.

All while an MQ9 Reaper drone kept an unblinking eye on the wounded WSO.

Stage four, and this is the crazy part, the US literally set up a temporary forward operating base inside Iran.

AC is an abandoned agricultural airirstrip just 200 ft wide and 3,900 ft long.

Located about 14 mi north of Shereza city in the southern Isvahan province, they turned an empty Iranian field into a US staging ground.

Here comes stage five.

Despite the odds, US special forces successfully in helicopters navigated the jagged landscape below radar level and reached their objective, establishing a defensive perimeter around the wounded WSO.

But time was up.

Just as they prepared to grab him and get out, the horizon started moving.

I RGC ground forces, popular mobilization units, and local militias were rapidly converging on their exact location.

What happened next was an absolute slugfest.

A massive hours long firefight erupted right in the middle of the day.

Look at this ridge.

They were surrounded, taking fire from all sides.

US operators laid down a withering wall of suppressive fire.

The commandos locked down a 360° defensive perimeter, guns up, air cover overhead designed to annihilate any IRGC element that step within range.

But it was the loitering US aircraft overhead that truly tipped the scales.

To keep the extraction corridor from collapsing, American air power continuously hammered the advancing Iranian units.

Assets like the A-10 Thunderbolt rain hellfire down on them.

The sheer volume of closeair support from the A-10s, Little Birds, and Blackhawks pounded the surrounding Iranian positions, taking a heavy toll and resulting in reported casualties across areas like Kuisa and Kaken.

That air support bought the ground teams the one thing they needed most, seconds.

Under the umbrella of that intense air cover, the special forces helicopters finally managed to load the wounded WSO onto an extraction bird.

Just when it seemed like they were in the clear, things went terribly wrong back at the makeshift landing strip near Shereza City.

According to the Pentagon, two of the transport aircraft slated for the evacuation suffered critical issues and couldn’t take off.

Suddenly, it was a race against time.

The IRGC was speeding toward the air in a massive convoy.

Commanders decided to send three more aircraft to rescue all US military personnel and the pilot.

Then in a scorched earth move, US forces blew up the two disabled transport planes, leaving nothing but charred remains for the IRGC.

The wreckage of a USMH6 little bird helicopter was also spotted next to the remains of HC130J combat king two rescue aircraft that were destroyed by US air strikes to prevent secret military data from falling into IRGC hands.

But how did all of this actually started? the Zagros mountains, Kermitshaw province near the Iran Iraq border.

This terrain is characterized by jagged peaks and deep narrow valleys.

It is a tactical nightmare for aviators, but provides excellent terrain masking to hide from longrange radar.

However, it also allows enemy forces to set up devastating short-range anti-aircraft ambushes.

But how did the US lose an F-15 E strike Eagle, an A-10 Warthog, and nearly a combat search and rescue team helicopter, and a Reaper drone in a single night? Well, this is how it started.

At 2:15 hours, a flight of two F-15 E strike Eagles crosses the border at low altitude.

A pilot and a weapon system officer were flying or target a deeply buried command bunker.

They use terrain following radar to hide in the valleys, staying beneath the gaze of Iran longrange Baver 373 missile network.

But what happens when they have to strike? To drop its GBU28 bunker buster, the lead strike eagle has to pull up and moved above the mountains.

This is breaking the radar horizon.

In a gorge below, highly mobile tor surfaceto-air missile system is waiting.

It achieves a lock and two missiles lead the rails.

The pilot dumps flares and pulls high GS.

One missile is spoofed.

But could they evade the second? While the second missile detonates on proximity, causing catastrophic hydraulic failure.

The crew ejects into the pitch black mountains, and the Sandy protocol is immediately activated.

But this is the US military, and they will move heaven on Earth to rescue a fallen combat.

At 2:45 hours in the morning, because the crash is near the border, A10 Thunderbolt 2 operating nearby are diverted for resort, also called rescue escort.

Down below, Iranian quick reaction forces are closing in on the downed airmen.

The Le 10 executes a low-level strafing run with its legendary 30 mm Avenger cannon, neutralizing the convoy.

But how did this aggressive maneuver come at a cost? The noise and tracers give away its position as the A-10 banks hard, bleeding off air speed.

For context, Iran recently flooded the battlefield with these Chinese shoulder fired missiles, weapons that are essentially reverse engineered clones of Russian manad.

The Iranian soldier fires a MSAD 2 infrared guided missile.

At this altitude, countermeasures deploy too late.

The missile shreds the right turbo fan engine, but can the Warthog’s legendary armor save it? Yes, the armor did save it from this missile launcher as it flew even with a damaged engine.

Because of the armor, the pilot managed to point the dying jet toward a plateau and punches out.

But just how many crash sites are we looking at the F-15E crash deep inside southwestern Iran? Specifically, local reports and verified wreckage photos place the crash site in the rugged mountainous terrain of the Kojui and Ber Almad province.

While the A-10 Warthog did not go down over the Iranian mainland, after taking heavy damage during the search and rescue escort mission, the pilot managed to navigate the crippled jet away from the mountains and towards safer airspace.

The rugged battle damage at 10 eventually crashed in the southern waters of the Persian Gulf, specifically near the straight of Hormis.

Now this at 3:15 hours, a dedicated combat search and rescue package launches.

These are highly trained rescue units built for this type of rescue mission.

It includes an HC-130J combat king.

This act as an airborne command center followed by two H60 D helicopters call signs Pedro 11 and Pedro 12.

They fly under the radar topping off their fuel in midair to maximize loiter time.

But will they make it into hostile territory undetected? Well, they push deep into the Zagros mountains just as dawn approaches.

4:45 hours.

Pedro 11 locates the A-10 pilot’s inferred strobe.

Pedro 12 circles above, providing overwatch with its 50 caliber machine guns.

Pedro 11 flares for landing and the peas hit the dirt to secure the pilot.

Then this happened to hidden Iranian Zu 23.

A Soviet era anti-aircraft gun opens fire from a concealed hideout.

It’s an ambush.

Heavy armor-piercing rounds tear through Pedro 12 as it orbits, resulting in severed transmission lines and an injured crew.

The pilot wrestles the crippled chopper into a hard controlled crash near Pedro 11.

The rescue mission is now a fight for survival and Pedro 11 is the only way home.

Under heavy covering fire, the crew of the down chopper sprints to the surviving bird.

But how did they stop the enemy barriage? Then at 52 hours, the C130 overhead coordinates an immediate strike.

Two F-35 stealth fighter jet littering high above in stealth overwatch drop precision munitions silencing the anti-aircraft gun.

With the A-10 pilot, the PJ and the Crash Chopper’s crew crammed inside.

Pedro 11 is maxed out on weight.

But how do you fly an overloaded helicopter escape the Zagros mountain? This is how they do it.

Pulling maximum power, the engines screaming, they barely clear the tree line and dive back into the valleys, racing for the border.

By 5:30 in the morning, Pedro 11 crossed back into Iraqi airspace.

Battered, overloaded, but alive.

As stated, no one gets left behind.

The F-15 E crew is still missing an action requiring a massive JSO raid the following night.

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Await, an F-35 was also hit during one of its mission sorties.

To properly analyze this incident, you need to understand that there are two distinct types of missiles, radar guided and heat-seeking.

The F-35 was designed to be practically invisible to longrange radar, but it wasn’t built to completely hive from heat-seeking missiles.

So, how exactly did Iran missile manage to bypass the stealth technology of the US F-35? Well, the secret lies in a major vulnerability that is its heat signature.

Its geometry and radar absorbing materials make its radar cross-section incredibly small, essentially rendering it invisible to traditional early warning and targeting radars.

To give you some context, this is how a plane’s radar signature compares to a birds.

But the F-35 is powered by a single Pratt and Whitney F135 engine, one of the most powerful fighter engines in the world.

The F-35 is heavily optimized to defeat radio frequency radar like the billiondoll S400S300 missiles.

However, stealth does not mean completely invisible.

This engine produces a massive heat plume.

Instead of using radar, modern air defense networks utilize inferred search and track systems.

The answer is this short-range heat seeeking missile like this one.

These passive sensors scan the skies for any heat anomalies.

Because inferred search and track systems emit no energy themselves, the F-35’s radar warning receivers would not alert the pilot that they were being painted by a target lock in the same way a radar lock would.

But how did the missile lock and how did the F-35 used evasive maneuvers? Once an infrared guided missile is launched, the dynamic of the engagement changes to a race of physics and countermeasures.

When the missile’s IR seeker head locks onto the massive thermal output of the F-35’s engine exhaust with the detection, the F-35 is equipped with a distributed aperture system.

Six infrared cameras positioned around the aircraft that provide a 360° spherical view.

The distributed aperture system detects the intense heat signature of the incoming missile’s rocket motor and instantly alerts the pilot.

To break the lock, a pilot executes high G evasive maneuvers while simultaneously deploying flares.

If the missile tracks the flares but is already within a lethal radius, its proximity fuse will trigger the warhead.

The resulting shrapnel and shock wave can cause significant damage to the aircraft’s control surfaces.

Stealth coating or internal systems without scoring a catastrophic direct hit, which perfectly aligns with reports of the F-35 sustaining damage but safely executing an emergency landing.

But what are flares? These pyrochnic countermeasures are made of magnesium or other combustible metals that burn at temperatures exceeding the aircraft’s engine heat.

The goal of the flares is to overwhelm or confuse the missile’s IR secret, forcing it to chase the decoy heat sources instead of the jet.

But what is Iran’s secret weapon? We believe it’s the 358 anti-aircraft missile or the SA67.

The 358 is a unique hybrid between a loitering munition or kamicazi drone and a surfaceto-air missile.

But how does it works? It flies at slower subsonic speeds and can loiter in a designated airspace in a figure 8 pattern until its optical and infrared sensors detect a target.

If a 385 missile or a more advanced high-speed indigenous IRG guided surfaceto-air missile was guided by a groundbased IRST network, it could engage the F-35 entirely within the infrared spectrum, bypassing the jet’s radar evading capabilities entirely.

This incident challenges the long-held doctrine that fifth generation fighters can operate with total impunity in contested airspace, highlighting the evolving threat of infrared detection.

But it has its advantages as it cannot hit fighter jets far from its radius of launch system.

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