Trump claims all pilots of downed aircraft were rescued; Iran claims to have shot down a US military rescue plane.

On April 4, Xinhua News Agency reported from Washington that U.S. President Trump stated on the 4th that the U.S. military has rescued the second pilot from the downed F-15E fighter jet in Iran. U.S. sources said that intense gunfire occurred during the rescue operation. The Iranian side claimed to have shot down a U.S. search and rescue aircraft.

Trump said on social media that in the past few hours, the U.S. military carried out "one of the boldest rescue operations in American history" and located the second pilot. This pilot "is safe and sound."

Trump stated that the U.S. military had been monitoring the location of this pilot and had "carefully planned the rescue operation." Following his orders, the U.S. military deployed dozens of aircraft and helicopters "carrying the most lethal weapons in the world" to carry out the rescue. "He (the pilot) was injured, but he will recover."

Trump also confirmed that another pilot had been rescued earlier. He said the reason this rescue had not been confirmed until now was to avoid jeopardizing the second rescue operation.

Trump also claimed that there were no American casualties in either of the two rescue operations.

According to a report by the New York Times website on the 5th, two U.S. military transport planes became "stranded" while performing the pilot rescue mission in Iran, and the U.S. military subsequently dispatched three new aircraft to continue the rescue mission and destroyed the two malfunctioning transport planes.

Earlier that day, Al Jazeera reported, citing a U.S. government source, that intense gunfire occurred during the rescue operation. The location of the gunfire was near the Kogiluyeh County in southwestern Iran, where the aircraft had crashed, resulting in at least four deaths and one injury.

According to the Iranian Tasnim News Agency, the public relations department of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps stated that a U.S. aircraft searching for the missing pilot was shot down in Isfahan Province.

On the 3rd, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that it had shot down a U.S. military fighter jet within Iranian territory. U.S. officials later confirmed to the media that a U.S. F-15E "Strike Eagle" twin-seat fighter jet had crashed in southern Iran, and the U.S. military was conducting an emergency search and rescue operation. This is the first known instance of a U.S. military aircraft crashing in Iran since the military operations launched by the U.S. and Israel against Iran on February 28. (End)