‘I’m Very Worried’: Former Combat Fighter Pilot Breaks Down What Happens When a Pilot Ejects Like Over Iran

A retired Marine combat fighter pilot told CNN Friday that she’s “very worried” for the pilots who ejected over Iran after Iranian state TV published images of the wreckage.

CNN reported that President Donald Trump has been briefed on the downing of the F-15E fighter jet, as a search and rescue operation is underway.

Iran is reportedly offering a “valuable reward” for the capture of the fighter jet pilots.

CNN’s Pamela Brown asked retired lieutenant colonel Amy McGrath, who’s running as a Democrat for a Kentucky Senate seat, her thoughts after seeing pictures of the aircraft’s ejected seat released by Iranian state TV.

“Well, my immediate response is, or thought is, you know, really thinking of the families of this, of the aircrew here,” McGrath said, continuing:

Look, I have always felt like Iran — it’s a very big country. It’s not the same as Iraq or Afghanistan. The administration has said that they have complete air supremacy and air superiority, and that the president has said, well, we’ve decimated their surface-to-air missile capabilities. But a lot of us who flew fighter jets and know this space, shall we say, are very worried that that is not the case. And I think that this sort of just shows that. This F-15 was apparently shot down. And, you know, we’re hopefully the ongoing operations will get this aircrew out of here. But I’m very worried.

McGrath said U.S. fighter pilots all undergo “the best training in the world.”

“If you’re going to be flying over enemy territory, you’re going to go through survival school in which you’re trained on how to survive, but also how to survive a prisoner of war situation,” McGrath said. “So, if you are alive after the ejection, which, you know, the ejection itself is a very violent thing to happen to the body. So, hopefully these crew made it through the ejection. But if you are alive, you are trained on how to communicate to the search and rescue forces that are going to be coming. ”

She added, “Right now that’s about as much as I can say because it is a sensitive ongoing operation that you talked about earlier.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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