Day 37, Operation Epic Fury – Zagros Mountains, Iran
The F-15E Strike Eagle was burning when the Colonel pulled the ejection handle. Iranian air defenses had found them over Isfahan province, and the 494th Fighter Squadron jet was coming apart at the seams. Both crew members ejected, but the mountain winds of the Zagros range tore their parachutes in opposite directions—separating the pilot from his Weapons Systems Officer by miles of jagged, unforgiving terrain.
While the pilot was extracted within hours by a daylight rescue mission, the Colonel—injured from the hard ejection—was alone. Behind enemy lines. And the Iranians knew it.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps immediately put a $60,000 bounty on his head, mobilizing elite units, Basij militia, and local Bakhtiari nomadic tribesmen—mountain fighters who knew every crevice and ridge of the 7,000-foot peaks. The Colonel, drawing on his SERE training, abandoned his parachute and clawed his way up the rocky shale, seeking refuge in a mountain crevice where tracking dogs couldn't follow.
For nearly 48 hours, the race was on.
The Deception
Inside the White House, President Trump skipped his usual weekend golf trip to Mar-a-Lago, moving between the Oval Office and its adjacent dining room to receive updates . The CIA had launched a parallel operation to the military rescue—spreading disinformation inside Iran claiming the airman had already been rescued and was being moved by ground teams toward the border .
The deception worked. While IRGC convoys scrambled to intercept phantom extraction teams, the Agency used "unique, exquisite capabilities" to scan the mountains. They found him—hiding at 7,000 feet in a crevice, invisible but for the CIA's sensors .
The coordinates hit the Pentagon. The order came down immediately.
The insertion
What followed was "one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in US history"—and unlike the covert night operations that typically define special operations, this mission would unfold in broad daylight .
SEAL Team 6 operators, Delta Force commandos, and Air Force Pararescuemen (PJs) infiltrated deep into Iranian territory, supported by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment—the "Night Stalkers"—flying MH-6 Little Birds and HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopters. Fixed-wing MC-130J Commando II transports established a Forward Arming and Refueling Point (FARP) at an abandoned agricultural airstrip fourteen miles north of Shahreza City—a 200-by-3,900-foot dirt strip in the desert .
But the Iranians weren't fooled for long.
As the rescue force closed on the Colonel's position, they walked into a hornet's nest. IRGC units and armed tribesmen converged on the area. What began as a stealth extraction devolved into a "fierce" and "massive" firefight lasting several hours .
The Siege
Two Black Hawk helicopters—HH-60W Jolly Green IIs—were hit by small-arms fire from Bakhtiari tribesmen. Crew members were wounded, but the aircraft held together, limping back to the FARP .
Above the chaos, A-10 Warthogs and MQ-9 Reapers prowled the skies, unleashing hell on approaching IRGC convoys. The pilots worked to keep Iranian reinforcements at bay while the ground team fought their way to the Colonel. At one point, an A-10 performing "Sandy" close-air support duties was shot down near the Strait of Hormuz—the pilot ejecting over Kuwait and recovering safely, but the rescue force was now down another aircraft .
The SEALs reached the Colonel at the ridge line. Injured but mobile, he had survived nearly two days on the run, evading capture through some of the most hostile terrain on Earth. They secured him and began the exfiltration—racing back to the FARP as Iranian forces closed in.
The "Holy Shit" Moment
The mission was falling apart at the finish line.
At the remote airstrip, two MC-130J Commando II transports—special operations aircraft designed for clandestine infiltration—were stuck. Whether due to mechanical failure or the soft desert surface, the planes couldn't take off .
Roughly 100 special operations forces now stood at a compromised FARP deep in Iran, with Iranian units closing and two aircraft blocking the strip. The commanders made a brutal decision: call in replacement aircraft to extract the teams in waves—and destroy everything they couldn't take out .
Three additional MC-130s flew into the hot zone, extracting the personnel in tense, staggered lifts. As the last Americans lifted off, US aircraft destroyed the stranded MC-130Js and four MH-6 Little Bird helicopters left on the ground—blowing them in place to prevent sensitive technology from falling into Iranian hands .
"If there was a 'holy shit' moment, that was it," a senior US official later recalled .
Aftermath
On April 5, 2026, President Trump posted two words to Truth Social: "WE GOT HIM!" .
At the White House, he declared it "the first time in military memory that two U.S. Pilots have been rescued, separately, deep in Enemy Territory" . The operation had cost the United States an F-15E, an A-10, two MC-130Js, four MH-6s, and multiple wounded—but no American lives were lost.
Iranian state media released footage of the destroyed aircraft at the FARP, claiming they had shot down the planes. The wreckage—charred C-130 fuselages and the distinctive six-bladed rotor of an MH-6 Little Bird—confirmed the high price of the rescue .
The Colonel, injured but alive, became the first American airman rescued from deep inside hostile Iranian territory since the 1980s—a testament to the principle that, as Trump put it: "WE WILL NEVER LEAVE AN AMERICAN WARFIGHTER BEHIND!"
For the SEALs, Delta operators, and Night Stalkers who executed the mission, the Zagros extraction would join the annals of special operations lore—a daylight rescue against overwhelming odds, executed in the heart of enemy territory, against the clock, and under fire.