A video shared by Tehran Times claims to show the moment a US F-35 fighter jet was hit during a combat mission over Iranian airspace. The clip shows the aircraft appearing to take damage, with explosions, smoke trails, and the jet veering off course mid-air.
A US F-35 fighter jet was attacked during an Iranian strike and forced to make an emergency landing at a military base in the Middle East, according to CNN. The claim, first made by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), would mark the first known instance of Iran hitting one of the US military’s most advanced and expensive aircraft in the ongoing conflict in Middle East.
According to the IRGC, the stealth jet was struck by air defence systems over central Iran in the early hours of Thursday. A video shared by Tehran Times claims to show the moment a US F-35 fighter jet was hit during a combat mission over Iranian airspace. The clip shows the aircraft appearing to take damage, with explosions, smoke trails, and the jet veering off course midair.
In a statement, the IRGC said it had “struck and seriously damaged” the aircraft at around 2.50 am (local time), adding that the jet’s fate remains unclear and that there is a “high possibility” it may have crashed. The group also said the operation followed the interception of more than 125 US-Israeli drones, calling it evidence of improvements in Iran’s air defence systems.
If confirmed, the incident would mark the first time Iran has successfully targeted an F-35, a fifth-generation fighter jet that costs more than $100 million and is considered a cornerstone of US air power. Both the US and Israel have been deploying F-35s extensively since the conflict escalated on February 28.
US CONFIRMS EMERGENCY LANDING, PLAYS DOWN DAMAGE
According to CNN, US Central Command said the aircraft was “flying a combat mission over Iran” when it was forced to make an emergency landing. “The aircraft landed safely, and the pilot is in stable condition,” spokesman Captain Tim Hawkins told CNN. “This incident is under investigation.”
However, Washington has not issued any official statement. The Pentagon said its operations are going as planned, with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth saying the US is “winning decisively” and that Iran’s air defences have been “flattened”.
Amid escalating conflict, at least 16 US aircraft have reportedly been destroyed since the start of the war, including 10 Reaper drones, while several others have been damaged in combat or accidents.
[ADDENDUM]
The actual video of the event, plus more, from The Hindustan Times:
No, no you would not be.
Because now you have some of the most valuable targetting data on Earth.
Iran, Russia and China will be pouring over all of that data, using it to figure out how to replicate a successful tracking and interception with their existing systems, or new ones.
If you were a real War Thunder player, you’d be leaking that information on the forums.
… do people not get this?
That… this is the start of F35s just… not really being stealth, in at least certain situations?
Where the… US and other F35 operators… may not know what those ‘certain situations’ are?
6 months, a year, 2 years from now, the US no longer can just assume it will get air superiority.
That… kinda … blows up a good deal of our military doctrine.
Do you notice how the F35 … isn’t even doing evasive manuevers?
Is not deploying countermeasures?
It didn’t know it was being targetted.
That’s a really big problem.
Buddy chill its not that deep. He flew too low and in the range of an IR missile battery that they failed to spot as part of their SIGINT. That’s why they have video, he was so close that radar stealth literally would not matter. It even explains the small missile warhead size.
And DAS missile detectors have been pretty awful at being able to detect missiles due to their tiny package size. There’s no gg ez RWR for passive tracking missiles.
They’re flying sorties more brashly because they thought AA was taken care of, which is how this ambush succeeded.
Yes it’s defnitley a first for successfully hitting the F-35, but this isn’t some groundbreaking concept. It would have been huge news if they targeted the F-35 at a BVR range with active tracking like with a radar or data link solution.
Like I said, I’m sure the soldiers were super excited that they got a hit, but they would defnitley have preferred to have scored a full kill with a pilot ejection and subsequent capture.
… You can make a larger missile, with a larger warhead, that is IR guided.
We have no idea what altitude that F35 was flying at, we don’t know where the IR camera that took that video was mounted at.
The missile comes in from an angle totally different to the camera’s POV… you sure there was no datalink involved in that?
You can put more, cheaper than BVR radar, IR sensors in more places, maybe even make a drone swarm of them, network them together, fly them around in orbital patrol patterns, have a corresponding network of ground based IR missile launchers.
Aerial version of Defense in Depth.
So if your threat environment looks like that, what, do you just blast out active jamming, to try and degrade/disable/overwhelm the datalinks between the IR sensor network?
Now you’re an EM homing beacon, now something akin to SEAD works against you.
You could even put IR sensors on ground tethered balloons, with a physical data link, around areas / things you know you can’t hide.
What the heck is this informed speculation? There is only room for mindless speculation here on lemmy. You need to be as ill-informed as possible to be able to comment on these things.
Still a better experience than reddit lol