The pilot of an A-10 Warthog had to eject due to damage, and a helicopter was hit by ground fire during a “thunder run” daylight rescue, top government officials said at a Monday press conference.
Those details were among a handful that President Donald Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed or revealed during a briefing at the White House about the weekend rescues of two F-15 crew members from inside Iran.
Trump said that the F-15E was brought down by a shoulder-fired missile, which the military had not previously confirmed.
Both rescues began, Caine said, after 4:40 am local time Friday, when the F-15E with the call sign “Dude 44” went down over Iran, prompting Trump to immediately order a rescue mission.
A ‘thunder run’
As rescue helicopters flew toward the downed pilot, an armada of A-10s, drones, and other tactical aircraft took part in “violently suppressing and engaging the enemy in a close-in gunfight,” Caine said. During the fight, one of the A-10s was hit by enemy fire, he said.
“This pilot continued to fight, continued the mission, and then upon exit, flew his aircraft into another country and determined that the airplane was not landable,” Caine said. “The pilot then made the decision to eject over friendly territory, and was quickly and safely recovered and is doing fine.”
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After the first F-15 pilot was rescued, one of the HH-60 Jolly Green II helicopters taking part in the mission was hit by small arms fire, Caine said.
“The crew sustained minor injury, and they are going to be fine,” Caine said.
In recounting the mission, Caine appeared to confirm that the two helicopters involved were the Air Force’s newest, but largely untested, rescue model, the HH-60W. Caine described the “combat search and rescue task force” that sprinted to find the first pilot as made up of A-10s, an HC-130 refueling tanker, and, he said, two “HH-60 Jolly Green II helicopters.”
“Jolly Green II” is the Air Force’s formal name for the HH-60W, which is broadly known as the “Whiskey” model by its crews.
The Air Force began taking deliveries of the HH-60W in 2022, replacing HH-60G Pave Hawks, which saw extensive action during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Whiskey has a larger engine and more advanced electronics than older HH-60Gs, but Friday’s full-throttle, open-daylight sprint to reach the downed F-15 pilot is almost certainly the most intense combat mission the new aircraft has flown.
The high-profile mission — which Hegseth seemed to relish in describing as “a thunder run right up the middle!” in Monday’s press conference — comes just as the Air Force has reduced the number of new HH-60Ws dedicated to its rescue corps. The service said last year it would move about two dozen new HH-60Ws from rescue use to VIP-transport in the Washington D.C. area.
A hiding place at 7,000 feet
The second downed crew member was rescued on Sunday in a separate mission.
For that mission, Trump confirmed that some of the aircraft that took part in the second rescue had to be destroyed after facing difficulties taking off. He described those aircraft as “old planes,” adding, “We blew them up to smithereens.”
Trump described the weapon that downed the F-15 as a “shoulder missile, heat-seeking missile” that was “sucked in right by the engine.”
“I ordered the U.S. armed forces to do whatever was necessary to bring our brave warriors back home, a risky decision, because we could have ended up with 100 dead, as opposed to one or two,” Trump said. “It’s a hard decision to make, but in the United States military, we leave no American behind. We don’t do it.”
The second crew member, an Air Force colonel, who managed to avoid being captured even though he was injured, Trump said.
“Despite the peril, the officer followed his training and climbed into the treacherous mountain terrain and started climbing toward a higher altitude, something they were trained to do in order to evade capture,” Trump said. “He scaled cliff faces, bleeding rather profusely, treated his own wounds, and contacted American forces to transmit his location.”
Trump said a U.S. “camera” watching the mountain had been able to see the pilot’s head move during the night from over 45 miles away.
The second mission, this time to rescue the colonel, involved 155 aircraft, including 68 fighters, 48 aerial tankers, 13 rescue aircraft, and four bombers, Trump said.
At one point during Monday’s briefing, Trump turned to Caine to ask how many troops took part in both rescue missions.
“I’d love to keep that a secret,” Caine replied.
UPDATE: 4/6/2025; This story was updated with additional information and comments from the Monday, April 6, press conference.
