A US F-35 fighter jet made an emergency landing at a US air base in West Asia after sustaining suspected Iranian fire, according to several reports.
Captain Tim Hawkins of US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the fifth-generation stealth jet was on a combat mission over Iran when it was forced to make an emergency landing. The aircraft touched down safely, and the incident is under investigation, he added.
“The aircraft landed safely, with the pilot in stable condition,” Hawkins added. “The incident is under investigation.”
This marks the first time Iran has struck a US aircraft in the late February war. Both the US and Israel deploy F-35s in the conflict; each jet costs over $100 million.
The IRGC later made the claim that it had damaged the F-35 fighter jet and released a video that purportedly showed a missile hitting the aircraft mid-air.
“The US military’s F-35 strategic fighter jet was hit and seriously damaged in the central Iranian sky at 2:50 a.m. today by the IRGC’s advanced modern aerospace defence system. The fate of this fighter jet is unknown and is under investigation, and there is a high probability that it crashed,” the IRGC said in a statement.
The US has lost other aircraft in this war, but none have been confirmed to have been hit by enemy fire.
Earlier US lost three F-15s that were mistakenly downed by Kuwaiti defences, and all six crew members ejected safely.
Last week, a KC-135 Stratotanker crashed in western Iraq; the military ruled out hostile or friendly fire as the cause. All six KC-135 crew members were killed in the crash.
Questions swirl over the war’s timeline and next moves. As per CNN, citing a US official confirmed the en route Marine Expeditionary Unit is the 31st MEU from Okinawa, paired with the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group, the USS Tripoli was spotted nearing Singapore earlier this week.
