A U.S. F-15 fighter jet deployed in military operations against Iran was shot down by Iranian forces on Saturday. One of the two crew members successfully ejected and was rescued, while the other remains missing. It is the first U.S. military aircraft downed by enemy fire since the war began on February 28.
With attention focused on pilot survival after the F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down, past accounts of pilots who returned alive from similar situations are drawing renewed interest.
On Sunday, the New York Times reported the story of Ronald Young Jr., 49, who survived after escaping a downed helicopter during the 2003 Iraq War. Young, then 26, was flying an Apache Longbow helicopter on the first day of the Iraq War when it was hit by enemy fire and crashed in central Iraq.
"The feeling of being shot down and crashing is incomparable to anything," Young told the NYT. "Someone is hunting you, trying to kill you. All you can think about is surviving."
Young and his co-pilot hid in a nearby irrigation canal but were captured by Iraqi forces. He endured 23 days of captivity — including beatings, interrogations and surveillance — before being rescued.
During the 1995 Bosnian War, Air Force Captain Scott F. O'Grady went missing after his jet was shot down. He hid in a forested area for six days amid missile and machine gun fire before sending a radio signal to a rescue team and being dramatically saved.
"I realized that tomorrow is never guaranteed," O'Grady told CNN in a 2015 interview, recounting how he survived hunger and thirst in the forest by eating ants.
Military pilots undergo survival training based on the SERE principle — Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. Under this protocol, pilots who eject from aircraft must find a safe location away from enemy fire and use a radio included in their escape kit to share their position with friendly forces.
Two crew members were aboard the downed F-15E. One was determined to have ejected during the crash. An F-15E ejection seat was also found on land.
The U.S. military deployed an HH-60G search-and-rescue helicopter and a C-130 refueling aircraft to rescue one crew member. The other remains missing. Iranian authorities announced through state media that they would offer a bounty to anyone who finds and hands over the missing crew member.