‘Easter Miracle!’ Rescue of Air Force Officer Took a Heroic Effort from Hundreds of Special Ops Troop, Reports Reveal

The daring rescue mission that saved the second FTru-15 crew member shot down inside Iran has been hailed as an “Easter Miracle” by President Donald Trump — and that is tough to argue, based on reports about how the operation went down on Sunday.

To save the Air Force officer, hundreds of U.S. Special Operations forces were mobilized, a “deception campaign” was launched by the C.I.A. to confuse the Iranians and buy time, and a temporary remote air base was constructed for service members to carry out the rescue. The troop survived for 48 hours by using their SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) training and hiding in the mountains after their jet was shot down about 100 miles inside southern Iran.

And in what The New York Times called a “final twist,” three planes had to be stealthily and hastily sent in to rescue the rescuers and the saved weapons officer, after two planes got stuck at the remote air base.

“WE GOT HIM!” President Donald Trump celebrated early on Sunday morning, after announcing the rescue mission was successful.

Here is what we know about the mission, based on multiple reports on Sunday:

The New York Times reported:

The two crew members of the F-15E Strike Eagle, the first lost to enemy fire in the monthlong war, had both ejected from the cockpit on Friday after Iran’s military struck their plane. The jet’s pilot was quickly rescued, but its weapons systems officer could not be found, setting off an urgent search with major consequences for Mr. Trump and the war that the United States and Israel launched on Feb. 28.

Finding the downed airman, who had been hiding behind enemy lines with little more than a pistol as defense, had been the U.S. military’s highest priority over the last 48 hours.

After ejecting from the F-15E, the officer hid in a mountain crevice, his location initially unknown to either Americans trying to rescue him, or Iranians trying to capture him.

The C.I.A. initiated a deception campaign to try to confuse Iranian forces, and convince them the airman had already been rescued and was moving out of the country in a ground convoy, a senior administration official said. The agency also ultimately found the airman’s hiding place, passing the information on to the Pentagon, which mounted the rescue operation, the senior administration official said.

The Daily Mail reported the troop “activated a personal locator beacon” after landing in Iran, alerting the military to where they were. “But the airman restricted the use of his beacon, because Iranian forces could have detected its signal as well,” The New York Times added.

Black Hawk helicopters then “scrambled from Basra in Iraq accompanied by a C-130J Super Hercules, which operates as a mobile command-and-control” center to find the troop, according to The Daily Mail.

“It is understood indigenous groups in the area may have been previously contacted by U.S. forces with the aim of creating contingency plans that could be activated to help with any rescues,” per the same report. Video of the aircraft crashing spread on social media and wreckage pictures were shared by Iran’s state broadcaster, the report added.

The Insider editor Michael Weiss reported the weapons systems officer hid in a mountain range about 5 miles northwest of where they ejected. Special forces created the “makeshift landing strip” nearby and landed 2 C-130s and had 4 MH-6 Little Birds, Weiss reported.

“One Little Bird flew to that mountain top area and rescued the WSO and brought him back to the landing strip. And of course the two C-130s’ nose gears got stuck in the dirt,” he continued. “So after a few hours they had to bring in three AFSOC Dash-8s to fly out the rescued WSO and the 100 or so personnel involved in the op.”

The U.S. Air Force then used “multiple bombs” to blow up the two aircraft that were abandoned, Weiss reported. He added the mission cost about $300 million.

Navy SEAL Team 6 commandos extracted the officer from the mountains, The New York Times reported. The rescue planes flew the injured troop to Kuwait for medical treatment after finally being able to leave the makeshift air base, the report added.

“He sustained injuries, but he will be just fine,” the president said on Sunday morning.

Later, Trump texted Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker, saying “the rescue was an Easter miracle.”

He continued:

The enemy was large and violent. The rescuers were brilliant, strong, decisive, and as cool as anyone can be. The Iranians thoguht they had him, but it wasn’t event close, and remember, we got two,  but couldn’t talk about the first in that it would have highlighted that there was a second.

Such a rescue has never happened before in so violent an enemy territory.It is usually not done because it is considered not doable. Such a great military — like no other.

Watch above via NBC.

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