Declassified footage shows rescue of US officer downed over Iran

Newly declassified footage released by the US Department of Defense shows the recovery of a US Air Force weapons systems officer who was shot down over Iran and spent roughly 50 hours evading capture, according to an account of the material.

The officer, known by the call sign Dude 44 Bravo, was the back-seat weapons systems officer in an F-15E Strike Eagle flown by a pilot using the call sign Alpha. The aircraft was hit by an Iranian shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile during a night strike mission near Isfahan on 5 April 2026, the account states.

Both crew members ejected over mountainous desert. Alpha's departure from the jet was clean. Bravo's parachute was badly damaged by the blast and did not open properly, and he fell at an estimated 70 to 100 mph, coming down about five miles from where his pilot landed. He broke his back, an arm and a shoulder on impact.

Alpha was recovered about six hours after the ejection in a daytime operation. Bravo, despite his injuries, left the landing site and climbed a desert ridgeline roughly 7,000 feet high to avoid Iranian ground units searching the area, which at one point came within a few hundred metres of him.

Rescuers used specialised targeting equipment and an infrared beacon in his survival kit to find him in the dark. The footage covers the operation that ended with his recovery after about two days on the ground.