The newly launched Struggle Division footage of the Dude 44 rescue is the primary unclassified have a look at one of many largest fight search-and-rescue missions the U.S. army has ever tried. On the night time of April 2, 2026, an F-15E Strike Eagle from the 494th Fighter Squadron at RAF Lakenheath was hit by a shoulder-fired missile over mountainous terrain south of Isfahan throughout Operation Epic Fury.
Each crew members ejected.
The pilot, name signal Dude 44 Alpha, got here down and was recovered the identical day. His weapons techniques officer, Dude 44 Bravo, landed miles away with a broken parachute, hit the bottom at an estimated 70 to 100 mph, and spent almost two days evading Iranian search events with a damaged again, arm, and shoulder.
The 2 recoveries had been solely totally different issues. Alpha’s pickup was a daylight HH-60W Jolly Inexperienced II mission beneath hearth, supported by A-10s within the Sandy position, HC-130 Fight King IIs, and particular warfare airmen. Bravo’s was a 50-hour struggle.
Injured and carrying little greater than a pistol, a radio, and a beacon, he climbed a roughly 7,000-foot ridgeline, hid in a crevice, and waited whereas Iranian forces closed to inside a couple of hundred meters. U.S. officers later mentioned the second bundle put 92 People on the bottom inside Iran, the primary U.S. troops there since 1980, backed by as many as 155 plane and several other thousand help personnel.
Unclassified overhead imagery dated April 5, 2026, tracks helicopters looking the ridgeline, then two Air Power pararescuemen closing on Bravo’s place. Bigger plane are seen on a makeshift desert strip and smaller Little Birds transfer towards the mountain. A few of that rotary-wing footage is intentionally blurred. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine mentioned the Pentagon was defending “essentially the most bespoke capabilities” so that they may very well be used once more.
The extraction itself was not the top of the danger.
After the PJs reached Bravo, the rescue power was briefly stranded when touchdown gear sank into the sand. A follow-on clandestine carry acquired the People out. Bravo later advised 60 Minutes that seeing the pararescuemen was “one of many biggest moments of my life.” He credited SERE coaching, his religion, and the power that got here for him. No American was killed within the restoration. Each aviators had been declared again in pleasant fingers round midnight Japanese time on Easter Sunday, greater than 50 hours after the Strike Eagle went down.
The footage above, which was partially seen on packages like 60 Minutes and throughout social media within the following days has now been absolutely declassified giving us 10 full minutes of footage from the operation to rescue the 2 downed pilots. The footage issues as a result of it turns a labeled after-action temporary into one thing the general public can see with their very own two eyeballs.
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