The United States suffered the loss of two military aircraft on the same day on Friday, 3 April, as an A-10 Warthog attack plane crashed in the Persian Gulf region around the same time an F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down over Iranian territory — marking the first confirmed loss of a manned US aircraft inside Iran since the war began five weeks ago. The A-10's lone pilot was safely rescued.
Officials did not provide details on the cause or the exact location of the A-10 crash. The back-to-back losses in a single operational day represent a significant blow to American claims of air dominance over the region, coming just days after senior US officials publicly insisted that Iran's aerial defences had been all but destroyed.
