US military aircraft losses mount as Iran war approaches fourth week

At least 16 US military aircraft have been lost since the start of the war with Iran, including 10 Reaper strike drones hit by enemy fire and a half-dozen other planes badly damaged in attacks or accidents. The most serious losses were because of accidents: three US F-15s downed by friendly fire in Kuwait, and a KC-135 tanker destroyed during a refuelling operation. All six crew members on the tanker were killed in the accident. Five other KC-135s were reportedly damaged by an Iranian missile strike while parked at an airfield in Saudi Arabia. So far only the uncrewed Reapers have been brought down by Iranian defences, with at least nine being destroyed in the air, according to a person familiar with the matter. One was hit at an airfield in Jordan by a ballistic missile, people familiar with the matter said. The other two Reapers were lost to accidents. The drones were meant to be “attritable” - flown in higher-risk areas because they do not carry pilots and were much cheaper to replace than a crewed plane. However, the risk to America’s most elite piloted assets became clear on Thursday when one of the US military’s most advanced fighter jets, the F-35, was forced to make an emergency landing after a combat mission over Iran. The jet landed safely and the pilot was in “stable” condition, said Captain Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for the US Central Command that oversees the Middle East. CNN first reported on the incident and said the jet was believed to be hit by Iranian fire. Iran’s state TV, quoting a Revolutionary Guard statement, said its air defence system badly damaged an F-35. Hawkins would not comment on the report and said the incident was under investigation. The stubby-nosed aircraft with stealth coatings cost up to US$77 million a piece in 2023, according to the Congressional Research Service. The warplanes have been used in combat since their introduction about 10 years ago, but none is known to have been hit by enemy fire. Iran operates the infrared-guided 358 surface-to-air missile, which has a small, mobile launcher. They can hit targets at altitudes up to 25,000 feet and, because they have no radars, aircraft would have no warning they were being tracked. They were a threat to US planes in last year’s campaign over Yemen. During the last large-scale air campaign that the US was involved with, the military intervention in Libya in 2011, there were only three reported combat losses over four months. One of them was a US Navy drone. The scale of operations, with the US saying it conducted more strikes in the first day of the war than in the “shock and awe” aerial attacks of the 2003 Iraq War, could explain the relatively high losses, said Peter Layton, a former Royal Australian Air Force officer and a visiting fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute. “The difference might be a much greater rate of effort,” Layton said. “More sorties flown each day.” US Central Command declined to comment, saying it would not discuss battle damage assessments. Although Iran’s air defences were among the first targets of the US and Israeli air campaign, completely stamping them out - and establishing air supremacy - has remained elusive. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine has said that the US only has localised air superiority, meaning there were specific swathes of Iranian airspace the US controls. The Reaper shootdowns also illustrate one of the difficulties of trying to open the Strait of Hormuz: any active air defences would greatly complicate those efforts. Houthi fighters in Yemen shot down several Reapers in 2025. The US operates 225 Reapers, according to the International Institute of Strategic Studies. Losing aircraft in accidents during high-tempo operations is not uncommon. The US Navy shot down one of its own aircraft in 2024 in the Middle East. “Periodic accidents like the tragic mid-air collision with the KC-135s are an unfortunate likelihood in large, high tempo, high pressure combat operations,” said Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. Thirteen US service members have been killed since the start of the operation on February 28: including the six in the KC-135 crash and seven in Iranian attacks early in the war. Around 200 US military personnel have also been wounded in seven countries across the Middle East since the start of the war, most of whom have already returned to duty, according to the US military. As the war approaches its fourth week, Iran has kept up a steady pace of strikes around the region, although US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth has said attacks have declined by about 90 per cent since the start of the conflict. Israeli and Western estimates suggest that about 60 per cent of its launchers have been destroyed, but the number has not fallen much since the early days of the war. On Thursday, Iran hit crucial energy facilities in Qatar and Saudi Arabia in retaliation for attacks on its South Pars gas field. Additional reporting by Associated Press and Agence France-Presse

US military aircraft losses mount as Iran war approaches fourth week

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}At least 16 US aircraft have been lost so far, mostly Reaper drones, amid the high-tempo air strike campaign against Iran

At least 16 US aircraft have been lost so far, mostly Reaper drones, amid the high-tempo air strike campaign against Iran