Mastodawn

A second USAF combat plane crashed in the Persian Gulf region today and the lone pilot was rescued. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/04/03/world/iran-war-trump-oil/47863db0-d61e-51bf-b7e1-6c4a9dc988e7?smid=url-share

Iran War Live Updates: Downed U.S. Jet and Missing Crew Member Raise Stakes in War

The F-15E was the first American warplane shot down by Iran in the five-week war and a crew member is missing. A second U.S. combat plane crashed in the Gulf region and its pilot was rescued, U.S. officials said.

The New York Times

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Alex P Roe

4d ago

@newsguyusa Somewhat surprising for a nation with zero air defense capacity according to claims by a certain US president.

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Graydon

@alex_p_roe @newsguyusa It doesn't have to be air defense; the airframes are old and being used near capacity. Things will break.

The pilots are being used to capacity, too, and will make mistakes.

Which is not to say there are no MANPAD systems or heavy machine guns in Iran, or even more capable systems that have been hiding. It entirely could be air defense.