USA F-15 fighterA second crew member, a weapons systems officer, who ejected over Iran after a fighter jet was shot down over Iran has been rescued, Axios reported.
On Friday, his fighter jet was shot down over a remote area of Iran, leaving him stranded behind enemy lines. As he ejected from the plane, the pilot said three words over the radio that caught the president’s attention. Donald Trumpof attention.
Donald Trump called the unidentified pilot a “brave warrior” in a Truth Society post.
Pilot’s words when ejecting
A second crew member of an F-15 flight was missing for nearly 48 hours while hiding in a mountain crevice with nothing but a pistol to protect himself, the Daily Mail reported.
In an interview with Axios, Trump claimed that the crew member sent a strange message after ejecting from the fighter jet, sparking suspicion. According to Trump, the pilot relayed the words “Be the power of God” on his radio.
Trump told Axios the statement sounded like “something a Muslim would say.”
He went on to say that U.S. officials believed the pilot may have been captured by Iran and that they were “sending false signals” to set up a trap.
A U.S. Department of Defense official who spoke to Axios confirmed the president’s statement; the crew member’s words were, “God is good.”
The F-15 captain and weapons systems officer relayed the information via a communications system after Friday’s ejection, according to two sources
Trump noted in the interview that other military personnel who knew the sailor also said he was a religious man, which made sense.
Read more: Live updates on the US-Iraq war
Details of rescue operation emerge
Hours after an F-15 fighter jet was shot down in Iran, the first pilot has been rescued. Iran also shot down a US Black Hawk helicopter during the rescue operation, injuring the crew, but the aircraft still managed to continue flying and land in the right place.
Axios cited U.S. officials as saying the weapons systems officer successfully ejected from the aircraft and was discovered while conducting a high-risk rescue mission in disputed territory.
According to Axios, CIA The spread of disinformation began by telling the Iranians that U.S. forces had located weapons systems officials and were conducting ground infiltrations.
A CIA official told Axios, “It’s a needle in a haystack, but in this case it was a brave American soul in the cracks of the mountain that would have been invisible without CIA capabilities.”
The official claimed that President Trump authorized the emergency relief operation after the CIA provided the Pentagon, U.S. military and the White House with his exact position.
