Inside the mission to recover a downed American airman

At one point he climbed the rugged terrain to a ridge more than 7,000 feet above sea level, equipped with little more than a pistol, a communications device and a tracking beacon.

It was in the high mountains that a team of American commandos, accompanied by American planes dropping bombs to clear the area, swarmed the officer to get him and themselves to safety.

Two American officials afterwards described the details of the risky operation.

It involved hundreds of U.S. military and intelligence personnel, including special operations forces who carried out the successful rescue mission, and CIA operatives who had pre-engineered a deception campaign to ward off potential Iranian captors.

And it came with multiple twists, including a pair of damaged US special operations planes that the US had to blow up during the operation on the ground in Iran.

“WE GOT HIM!” President Trump wrote on social media after following the operation from the White House on Saturday.

“Over the past few hours, the U.S. military has conducted one of the most daring search and rescue operations in American history.”

Both had ejected from the aircraft when it was hit, but the whereabouts of the weapons systems officer were unknown. After sustaining injuries during the ejection, he hid in the crevice to avoid detection by Iran, whose leaders had placed a bounty for his capture. He then contacted the army.

But his communications were sporadic as he tried to avoid being spotted by Iranian forces.

In Washington, Trump spent Friday in the West Wing, moving between the Oval Office and the adjacent dining room to receive updates on the mission to find the officer.

The downing of the F-15E, along with Iran’s ability to attack another aircraft – an A-10 Warthog – and a US helicopter assisting with the search and rescue mission appeared to undermine his government’s claims of air dominance over Iran.

Trump skipped the golf course on Saturday and remained at the White House as the operation to enter Iran to find the downed pilots took place.

As military planners rushed to put the operation together, a parallel CIA effort was underway. US intelligence agents attempted to spread information within Iran that both crew members had been recovered, in an attempt to confuse members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who were themselves urgently searching for the downed officer.

Israel, meanwhile, has postponed some planned attacks in Iran so as not to disrupt search and rescue efforts, an Israeli official told CNN, and offered intelligence support, two Israeli sources said.

It was the CIA that ultimately identified the officer’s exact location and shared the information with the military.

“This brave warrior found himself behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, hunted by our enemies, who grew closer by the hour, but never truly alone,” Trump wrote.

As U.S. special operations forces converged on the mountainside where the officer was hiding, U.S. aircraft launched strikes in the area to ensure Iranian forces could not get there first. Trump watched from the Situation Room.

On a remote airstrip in Iran, two MC-130J special operations transport planes waited to take the commandos and rescued pilots out of the country. But they had been damaged at some point during the operation.

The military decided to send new planes and blow up the damaged planes rather than risk them falling into Iranian hands.

In a social media post on Sunday, Trump said he would speak to reporters about the remarkable operation at a news conference in the Oval Office at 1pm on Monday (3am AEDT on Tuesday).

He also provided some new details about the crew member, who he described as “severely injured” and “very brave”, and that he was rescued from “deep in the mountains of Iran”.

Trump called the operation “an AMAZING display of courage and talent from everyone!”

NEVER MISS A STORY: Be the first to receive your latest news and exclusive stories by following us on all platforms.