4 hours ago
14
A US airman has spoken of climbing a 7,000ft ridge with a broken back, arm and shoulder after he was shot down in Iran – and of being rescued by a team of American special forces as hostile locals closed in on him.
The air force colonel, identified only by his codename Bravo, appeared on camera Sunday night on CBS’s 60 Minutes in a segment some critics have labelled Pentagon propaganda to boost public perception of Donald Trump’s unpopular war.
Pete Hegseth, the president’s defense secretary; Dan Caine, chair of the joint chiefs of staff; and Brad Cooper, head of US Central Command; all appeared on the show to talk about the rescue operation. “Alpha”, the co-pilot of the downed F-15 fighter jet, declined to take part, despite reported pressure from the Trump administration to do so.
The airmen were recovered in April in an operation involving thousands of military personnel, including the elite Army Delta Force, Navy Seal Team Six, and a CIA decoy operation to distract and deceive Iranians chasing a bounty for their capture, the 60 Minutes segment said.
Bravo, who was reportedly also initially hesitant to take part, told interviewer Norah O’Donnell that his aircraft was struck by an Iranian shoulder-fired missile – and he realized his parachute was damaged after he and his co-pilot ejected.
“When I looked up and saw no parachute, that was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen,” the weapons system operator said. “So I paused, right then. And I prayed: ‘Lord, your will be done. But if I’m getting through this, I need help.’”
Bravo said he was unable to fully untangle his chute and hit the ground hard.
“Based on my description and the injuries that I had, the professionals think I hit the ground, going somewhere between 70 and 100 mph,” he said.
In addition to the broken bones, Bravo said he also sustained a sprained ankle in the hard landing, and serious wounds to his head and face.
“I had injuries, but we all train to adapt and overcome the things that we’re faced with,” he said. “I moved as quickly as I could, despite the injuries, away from the place that I landed.”
Bravo said he managed to hike and climb up the 7,000ft ridge with only a pistol, a communication device and a tracking beacon.
Declassified video broadcast by 60 Minutes showed a “risky” daytime raid by US forces to rescue Alpha, who landed about 5 miles away from his colleague. More than 20 helicopters took part in that operation – and the video showed two of them under fire.
“It was a gun fight all the way in and all the way out,” Hegseth told O’Donnell. “But they got Alpha back. And then we began to, immediately, I mean you’re celebrating that Alpha’s back, but you realize the job’s only half done.”
While Alpha was retrieved about six hours after they were shot down, Bravo’s ordeal lasted about 50 hours.
“As soon as I found a spot that I felt provided some concealment, I started working toward communication,” he said. “When I got to the moment where I could review and think about all that I’d gone through, I sent: ‘God is good,’ as a recognition of all that he had brought me through.”
Cooper said a plan to rescue him was accelerated as soon as it was clear he had survived.
“There was a: ‘I’m hurt, I’m moving,’ and there was a ‘God is good’ message that came in there,” he said. “Now we knew he was alive. He’s moving. OK, let’s keep planning.”
US bombers and drones hit Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces nearby, according to CBS, which showed separate video of those attacks. Two large search and rescue planes with special forces troops and small helicopters landed on a makeshift desert airstrip several miles from where Bravo was hiding.
His first glimpse of the US soldiers was, he said, “one of the greatest moments of my life” – and came with about 1,500 Iranian personnel inside a 10-mile radius, Cooper said.
The extraction did not conclude without incident. One rescue plane became lodged in the desert sand, was abandoned and then bombed to avoid it falling into enemy hands.
Cooper said more than 90 Americans were involved on the ground, supported by several hundred more in the air, and up to 5,000 people involved overall.
“What you need to know is we would have sent more to go get the back-seater,” he said.
CNN reported on Saturday that getting the airmen to appear on television was a priority for Hegseth, who was eager to present a success story in Trump’s ongoing war that has killed 18 US troops, wounded more than 800 and sent oil and gasoline prices soaring.
In a statement to CNN, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell called that story “a complete lie”. He said the decision about whether to participate in the 60 Minutes interview on Sunday “was each pilot’s alone, because it is their story”.
“As CNN notes, one pilot decided to participate and one did not,” Parnell’s statement said. “Additionally, the [Pentagon] took great care to ensure operational security, sources, and methods were protected. To suggest otherwise is to denigrate every member of our military who participated in and supported the interview.”
CNN further reported Bari Weiss, CBS News’s editor-in-chief, who has been criticized for perceived favoritism towards the Trump administration, put pressure on Hegseth for exclusive access to the story.
A backlash to the airing of the segment was reported on Monday by the Daily Beast. One analyst, Zeteo News media commentator Justin Baragona, posted on X that a CBS staffer told him: “Norah [was] absolutely willing to play the part of dimwit reporter used as a propaganda tool.”
