U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle (file photo) [AP=Yonhap News]

The U.S. military, deploying hundreds of elite Navy SEALs and special forces members, successfully rescued a missing F-15 pilot who had survived for over 24 hours behind enemy lines with only a pistol, two days after the aircraft was shot down.

According to The New York Times (NYT) on the 4th (local time), the two officers aboard the U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle, shot down by Iran on the 3rd, ejected immediately after the aircraft was hit.

The F-15E Strike Eagle is a two-seat fighter jet. The front seat is occupied by the pilot, and the rear seat by the Weapon Systems Officer (WSO), who is responsible for operating targeting systems, air-to-ground weapons, and electronic warfare equipment.

Immediately after being hit, the pilot was rescued, but the other occupant, the WSO, went missing, initiating a fierce search competition between both U.S. and Iranian forces.

The officer who ejected from the fighter jet is reported to have hidden among rocks in a mountainous area. Neither the U.S. nor Iran could initially determine his location.

However, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) eventually located the officer's hiding spot and transmitted this information to the U.S. Department of Defense, enabling a full-scale rescue operation.

The operation to find and rescue this U.S. officer, who was hiding deep within enemy territory with only a personal sidearm, reportedly involved hundreds of special forces members, including those from the elite Navy SEAL "Team 6," as well as dozens of aircraft and helicopters, and capabilities from cyber, space, and intelligence domains.

Navy SEAL "Team 6," reported to have played a crucial role in the operation, is considered the most elite unit within the Navy SEALs and was the unit that successfully carried out the operation to kill Osama bin Laden in 2011.

While the U.S. government generally maintains secrecy regarding this unit, also known as DEVGRU (Development Group), U.S. media outlets, including the NYT, reported that Team 6 was the primary unit in this operation.

The hiding officer evaded Iranian pursuit for over 24 hours and even traversed ridges at altitudes exceeding 2,000 meters.

Attack aircraft first bombed the area where the officer was hiding to prevent Iranian convoys from reaching him. The Wall Street Journal reported that MQ-9 Reaper drones were among those used in these airstrikes.

Additionally, U.S. special forces reportedly fired upon Iranian forces to prevent them from reaching the officer during the rescue, but did not engage in direct combat with the Iranian military, according to a U.S. military official.

The officer possessed a beacon (radio signal transmitter) and secure communication equipment to communicate with the rescue team. However, he refrained from using the beacon as it could also be detected by Iranian forces.

Wreckage of the downed F-15 fighter jet revealed by Iran [Reuters=Yonhap News]

Meanwhile, a senior official revealed that the CIA also conducted a "deception operation" to confuse the Iranian military.

The CIA reportedly carried out maneuvers to make the Iranian military believe that the missing officer had already been rescued and was being moved out of the country via a ground convoy.

After two days of rescue operations, U.S. special forces successfully rescued the officer without any casualties. According to Fox News, the rescue operation took 48 hours.

A senior U.S. military official stated that there were no U.S. casualties among the rescue team and that all special forces personnel returned safely. The NYT reported that the rescue aircraft carrying the injured F-15E officer headed to Kuwait for treatment.

Reports from the Iranian side indicated that five individuals died during the U.S. airstrikes conducted as part of the rescue operation.

Tasnim News Agency reported that five people were "martyred" during airstrikes overnight while searching for the missing crew of the downed U.S. fighter jet in southwestern Iran.

The F-15E fighter jet shot down by Iran crashed in a region where anti-government forces are strong. Therefore, the rescued officer may have received assistance, such as shelter, from locals, according to the NYT.

After rescuing the F-15E occupants, two U.S. transport aircraft that were intended to carry the officer and the rescue team became stranded at a remote Iranian base.

U.S. command decided to deploy new transport aircraft and demolished the two disabled existing aircraft to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the aircraft destroyed by U.S. special forces were MC-130J models. These are specialized aircraft, modified from the C-130 transport plane, used for inserting and extracting forces deep behind enemy lines.

U.S. Special Operations Aircraft MC-130J [EPA=Yonhap News]

Regarding this operation, a senior U.S. military official described the rescue mission as "one of the most challenging and complex operations in U.S. special operations history."

U.S. President Donald Trump also officially confirmed the rescue on social media platform Truth Social shortly after the rescue news was first reported, stating, "I am very pleased to announce that he (the missing person) is now safely back."

He further stated that the rescued officer was an Air Force colonel and added, "He (the missing person) is injured, but he will be fine."

Meanwhile, Iranian media reported that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran had shot down a U.S. aircraft searching for the missing crew of the downed U.S. fighter jet.

Tasnim News Agency, an Iranian semi-official outlet, quoted the Revolutionary Guard as claiming, "We destroyed an enemy U.S. aircraft that was searching for the pilot of the crashed fighter jet in the southern region of Isfahan."

Iranian police stated that the U.S. aircraft shot down in Isfahan was a C-130 tanker aircraft for aerial refueling.

However, given that the aircraft Iran claims to have destroyed is the same type as the pre-modified model of the aircraft (MC-130J) that U.S. special forces blew up due to being disabled, the possibility of false information cannot be ruled out.