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Iran Reportedly Shoots Down US Planes With Air Defense Trump Said Was 'Annihilated' Two Days Ago
"They have no anti-aircraft equipment," Trump told the nation. Two days later, a pair of US planes and a helicopter were hit.
Apr 03, 2026
Two days after President Donald Trump declared that Iran was "no longer a threat" and that its air defense had been "annihilated," Iranian forces reportedly struck down two US jets on Friday.
Citing an Israeli official and a second source with knowledge of the situation, Axios reported on Friday afternoon that the two crew members piloting the F-15E Strike Eagle jet were struck by Iranian fire and ejected from the plane.
It is the first known time a manned US aircraft has been shot down over Iranian territory since the US and Israel launched the war on February 28.
One of the crew members has been rescued by US special forces, though according to The Washington Post, his condition is not known. The second has not been found, and an intensive operation is reportedly underway to locate him in Iran.
The Intercept then reported later on Friday afternoon that a second US plane, an A-10 Warthog, had crashed near the Strait of Hormuz at around the same time. Similarly, one of the crew members was recovered while another remains missing.
Al Jazeera has reported that a US Black Hawk helicopter was also hit with a projectile while taking part in the search mission and that it managed to leave Iranian airspace before landing safely.
If captured by Iranian forces, analysts have raised the possibility that the missing crew members could be used as bargaining chips in negotiations with Washington.
Iran has claimed responsibility for taking down the F-15 with anti-aircraft fire, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) semiofficial news agency Tasnim stating that it was destroyed.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) has denied Iran's previous boasts of having downed US jets—including one it claimed was shot down near the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday. But the US has not yet made similar denials about Friday's incidents and has confirmed that the F-15 was lost.
Trump claimed during a televised address to the nation on Wednesday that Iran "has been eviscerated and essentially is really no longer a threat," thanks to a merciless five-week-long US bombing campaign.
He specifically said that Iran's air defenses had been totally eliminated: "They have no anti-aircraft equipment," Trump said. "Their radar is 100% annihilated. We are unstoppable."
The previous week, he claimed Iranian leadership was ready to make a deal with the US because they "can't do a thing" to protect themselves from US aerial attacks. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has taken a similar line, lauding America's "air superiority."
These claims were already brought into doubt by a report on Thursday by CNN that roughly half of Iran's missile launchers are still intact, and the country still has about 50% of its drones, according to internal US intelligence assessments. One source told the network that Iran was still "very much poised to wreak absolute havoc throughout the entire region."
If it is confirmed that Iran was responsible for downing the American jets, it takes a sledgehammer to the idea that the country's capabilities have been destroyed, adding to the seemingly endless stream of lies coming out of the administration about everything from the price of gas to whether Iran is negotiating, to who is even in charge of the country.
At least 15 American troops have been killed in the region since Trump launched the war in Iran, according to an analysis by The Intercept earlier this week. More than 520 US troops have also been injured, but CENTCOM has sent outdated casualty numbers to media outlets and refused to say how many total troops have been killed, leading to accusations of a "cover-up."
Mohammad Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, took a victory lap on social media after news broke of a US plane being downed on Friday and mocked Trump’s claims that the US and Israel have destroyed Iran’s regime.
“After defeating Iran 37 times in a row," Ghalibaf said, "this brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded from 'regime change' to 'Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?'"
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'Singularly Unqualified' Hegseth Executes Purge of Top Military Brass as Iran War Spirals Out of Control
Sen. Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the ousted generals were likely “telling Hegseth his Iran war plans are unworkable, disastrous, and deadly.”
Apr 03, 2026
As President Donald Trump’s war in Iran goes further off the rails, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth carried out a “purge” of US Army leadership on Thursday, ousting its most senior general and two other top officers and reportedly leaving many senior officials stunned.
The Pentagon has not provided an official explanation for the sudden firing of Army Chief of Staff General Randy George, who was jettisoned along with another four-star general, David Hodne, and Major General William Green Jr., the top Army chaplain. But speculation was rampant Thursday as the White House continued to insist its war on Iran is going as planned.
Tom Nichols wrote for The Atlantic on Thursday that those dismissed were likely casualties of “Hegseth’s vindictive struggles with the Army... as he struggles in a job for which he remains singularly unqualified.”
Nichols suggested the latest firings were part of an effort to eliminate allies of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who has reportedly pushed back against Hegseth's attempt to enforce rigid ideological conformity and excise what he views as "wokeness" from the military.
Most recently, Driscoll reportedly objected to Hegseth's demands that he remove four Army officers—two Black men and two women—from a list of those to be promoted to brigadier general, while allowing the other mostly white male officers to be promoted.
NBC reported on Thursday that they were among more than a dozen Black and female officers that Hegseth has attempted to block from advancement across the four branches of the military.
Just before his firing, George—once an aide to former President Joe Biden's Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin—had reportedly asked to meet with Hegseth about his demotions of the four Army officers, but Hegseth refused.
The Atlantic reported that Driscoll, who has been rumored as a possible replacement for Hegseth amid embarrassing bungles like last year's "Signalgate" scandal, could be shown the door next.
Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), a US Army combat veteran who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, described George as "a Patriot who has served our nation honorably and bravely for decades" and said his firing was "a huge loss for our Army and our country."
He added that "Hegseth and Trump firing the highest ranking Army officer, in the middle of a war they started, shows you exactly where their priorities are."
While these sorts of petty grudge matches and power struggles have been a hallmark of Hegseth's term at Defense, Nichols remarked that "dumping the Army chief of staff in the middle of a war, without explanation, is a reckless move even by Hegseth’s standards."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, theorizes that Hegseth's purge—which is one of the biggest wartime leadership shakeups in recent memory—did not happen in spite of the Iran war, but because of it.
According to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, who was quoted by TIME on Thursday, Trump's inner circle—including Hegseth and other military and foreign policy officials—has formed a sort of information bubble around the president, giving him a “rose-colored view” of the war, even as it grows more unpopular by the day with the American public.
The high-level firings come as Trump and Hegseth are beginning what they said would be a multi-week campaign of bombing Iran “back to the Stone Ages.”
Hegseth has also continued to float the possible deployment of ground troops, potentially to invade and occupy critical strategic areas, like Iran's oil export hub Kharg Island, which analysts have warned would be unworkable and put thousands of US troops in harm's way.
"It's likely that experienced generals are telling Hegseth his Iran war plans are unworkable, disastrous, and deadly," Murphy said.
"Also, Hegseth is firing a ton of experienced generals right now."
According to Jennifer Griffin, the Chief National Security Correspondent for Fox News, Hegseth’s most recent firings “[add] to a long list of Secretary Hegseth asking senior military officers to step down with no reason given,” including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., and Adm. Alvin Holsey, the commander of US Southern Command, both of whom were also Black men.
Dan Lamothe, a military affairs correspondent for The Washington Post, added that Hegseth has now almost totally remade the Joint Chiefs of Staff since taking over as defense secretary and that only two original members, Gen. Eric Smith of the Marine Corps and Gen. Chance Saltzman of the Space Force, remain from the original team.
"The American people deserve to know why so many of their top officers are being tossed out of their jobs," Nichols said.
Noting the defense secretary’s penchant for secrecy, he suggested that now that George and other senior officers pushed out by Hegseth are considered civilians, "maybe they can step forward and tell their fellow citizens what on Earth is going on in Hegseth’s Pentagon.“
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Warren Leads Demand for Probe Into Hegseth's Reported Efforts to Profit From Iran War
Democratic lawmakers said if reports of Hegseth attempting to buy defense stock weeks before the war are true, it "would be a profound conflict of interest" and a "betrayal of the nation paying the price for this war."
Apr 02, 2026
Senate Democrats are pushing for an investigation into US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth following a report that he attempted to make a “big investment” in weapons stock just weeks before President Donald Trump launched an aggressive war against Iran.
Three Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee—Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) were joined by Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Jeff Merkley to send Hegseth a letter on Wednesday.
They told the secretary that his reported attempt to broker the deal "would be a profound conflict of interest and a potential violation of your federal ethics agreement—and betrayal of the nation paying the price for this war and the troops you are sending into harm’s way."
The Financial Times reported earlier this week that Hegseth's "broker at Morgan Stanley contacted BlackRock in February about making a multimillion-dollar investment in the asset manager’s Defense Industrials Active ETF... shortly before the US launched military action against Tehran.”
However, the purchase was reportedly never made because the massive bundle of stocks was not available to Morgan Stanley clients at the time.
A Pentagon spokesperson has also denied the story, calling it "entirely false and fabricated" and claiming that neither Hegseth nor any of his representatives ever approached BlackRock.
But, as the lawmakers noted, FT reported that the inquiry was significant enough for BlackRock to flag it internally.
Hegseth and other Pentagon officials confirmed by the Senate are prohibited by law from owning or purchasing publicly traded stock in the 10 companies that have received the largest Defense Department contracts over the past five years.
But the fund held stocks in several of these companies, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Huntington Ingalls, Boeing, RTX Corporation, and L3Harris Technologies.
Reports of the proposed deal by Hegseth's broker come as the Trump administration has faced other accusations of trading on insider information about the president’s next moves to win big on prediction market services. Platforms like Polymarket have seen bettors take home monster winnings by placing wagers predicting major military actions in Venezuela and Iran just hours before Trump launched them.
The lawmakers noted that while the war is costing American taxpayers more than $1 billion per day and has saddled Americans with soaring gas prices, it has proven highly lucrative for major defense contractors, whose stocks jumped significantly in the days after the war was launched, even as the rest of the market took a tumble.
The Trump administration is currently demanding another $200 billion to prosecute the war on top of a $1.5 trillion budget request to fund the Defense Department, which the lawmakers said would likely result in these companies’ profits and stock prices continuing to climb.
The US-Israeli war against Iran, launched on February 28, has been condemned as illegal by many international law experts and human rights groups, who have accused the US of violating the UN Charter and committing war crimes.
According to a report on Wednesday from the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a US-based human rights monitor for Iran, more than 1,600 civilians have been killed since the war began, including 244 children. At least 13 US troops have also been killed since the conflict broke out.
The lawmakers told Hegseth regarding his reported investment attempt: “If this report is accurate, it would appear to represent an appalling effort to profit off of your knowledge of the president’s plans for war.”
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