A US airman stranded in Iran’s mountains for 36 hours was rescued thanks to a CIA-led deception campaign and a daring military operation that thwarted Iranian efforts to locate him.
The United States successfully rescued a downed US Air Force service member, whose F-15 was shot down by Iranian forces in the south east of the country over the weekend, US President Donald Trump said in a Sunday post to Truth Social.
US officials had earlier confirmed the mission to FOX News, explaining that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had conducted an extensive deception campaign as part of the rescue effort.
The Airman, who hasn’t yet been publicly named, was one of two aircrew flying the F-15 when it was shot down. A US military team rescued the aircraft’s pilot later that day, but the second airman was stranded for 36 hours in mountainous terrain before being rescued by US forces.
The CIA campaign involved spreading word inside Iran that US forces had already found him and were moving him overland for exfiltration, confusing Iranian forces and leadership in their own search for the missing airman.While Iranian forces grappled with misinformation, US intelligence was able to aid in locating the airman in Iran and assist in a US special forces extraction mission.
Smoke rises following a reported shrapnel hit on Ramat Hovav’s industrial zone, April 5, 2026.Missile fragments hit southern Israel, no injuries reportedIt was the ultimate “needle in a haystack” scenario, a US official told Fox News. “A courageous American hidden within a mountain crevice, undetectable by conventional means but revealed through CIA intelligence,” he said.
THE RESCUE MISSION
In addition to the CIA’s intelligence campaign, the rescue mission employed hundreds of special forces troops, dozens of US warplanes, and helicopters, according to a New York Times report.
The US special forces teams were deployed on the ground in Iran on both Friday and Saturday as part of the search and rescue effort. While the search operation was conducted, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) dispatched teams in an attempt to locate the missing airman. To thwart these efforts, US Air Force jets carried out strikes against Iranian forces to prevent them from reaching the area, according to sources cited by Axios.
Two officials familiar with the operation told the NYT that as US forces finally located the airman and closed in for extraction, a firefight erupted with Iranian forces.
A senior US military official told the NYT that the mission to rescue the airman was ‘one of the most challenging and complex in the history of US special operations.’An IDF source confirmed to The Jeruslem Post that Israeli forces provided intelligence and reportedly conducted strikes in support of the US operation.
Foreign reports have claimed that Israeli commandos participated in the operation. However, an IDF source stated to the Post that these reports are completely false.
During the operation, US forces reportedly established a temporary air base for their search mission, during which two MC-130J planes became stuck, according to a Wall Street Journal report.MC-130Js are specially equipped aircraft used for covert infiltration and the extraction of troops from behind enemy lines.
Due to the planes being immobilized, three additional planes were reportedly sent in for final extraction, NYT reported, and US forces made the decision to blow up the downed planes before evacuating the area.
After the successful extraction mission, Iranian forces discovered the remains of the MC-130J planes and falsely claimed that their military had shot them down.“According to the IRGC Public Relations Department, through divine favor, the hostile American drone that had been tracking a downed fighter pilot in the southern Isfahan was shot down.” IRNA news tweeted regarding the MC-130J aircraft.
