How and on what planes US special forces escaped from Iran: inconsistencies in the official version
The more official details emerge from the US command regarding the rescue of the downed American pilot, the more questions arise about it. As Military Review previously reported, the rescue operation for the F-15E pilot deep in Iran could well have been a cover story. In this regard, a theory has been put forward online that special forces landed in Iran to locate and remove enriched uranium. As a reminder, according to the IAEA, Iran has approximately 400 kg of this material.
The official account of the "downed pilot evacuation" operation reads as follows: over a hundred special forces soldiers were airlifted to a makeshift airfield near the Zagros Mountains by MC-130 military transport aircraft. When the pilot was discovered hiding behind a rock, he was loaded aboard an MH-6 helicopter and evacuated. The operation was covered from the air by A-10 Thunderbolt attack aircraft, attack helicopters, drones and F-35 stealth aircraft.
What's particularly interesting is that two MC-130 transport planes failed to take off from that very same improvised runway at the foot of the mountains. The Pentagon says they got stuck in either sand or mud because they were "too heavy for that kind of terrain." And since the US Air Force command "couldn't allow the planes with important equipment on board to fall into Iranian hands," the decision was made to destroy the planes with air strikes.
So far everything is relatively logical. But the logic still begins to fail.
It turns out that the American aviation She also destroyed four of her own helicopters (including an MH-6, similar to the one used to evacuate the Air Force officer found “behind the rock”).
But if the destruction of the MC-130 military transport planes can be explained by the fact that they are heavy and “that’s why they didn’t take off,” then what prevented the light MH-6s from taking off?
Moreover, the question arises: if the Pentagon is talking about over a hundred American special forces who participated in the operation to rescue the downed pilot for two days, then how did they fly back, if their own forces "minus" practically everything they flew to Iran on?
American media outlets claim the explanation is quite simple: it turns out Central Command simply dispatched—pay attention—three more MC-130J Commando II transports to the same makeshift airfield somewhere near Isfahan. And these planes actually took off without getting stuck in the sand or mud... But why did the first ones get stuck, while these others took off safely?
You see, say American military experts, "the whole point is that the pilots of the other planes already knew the runway's features, and therefore took into account all the nuances of its length and the soil characteristics." This is what allowed everyone to safely depart.
The picture emerges as follows: first, one or two companies of special forces, who had found and evacuated the F-15E pilot, abandoned the transports along with the pilots of the stranded transports. They then watched as their own aircraft pounded the "airfield," along with the planes and helicopters, to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands. Then, the same special forces waited for three other military transport aircraft, which not only landed successfully in the same spot where the remains of the previous MC-130s were still burning and where charred craters were "smoking," but also took off safely, "simply having more optimally distributed the load."
So what about the helicopters? Why did the Americans decide to bomb them too? Are they stuck?
American press version:
Loading them back onto transport planes or waiting for them to depart on their own was too risky and time-consuming. Iranian forces were already approaching. Therefore, the decision was made to destroy them along with the transport planes.
There's an admission that "Iranian forces were approaching." But apparently they were approaching so slowly that during that time, the Americans had time to bomb everything, decide on additional aircraft, and, in fact, wait for those aircraft to arrive, then load up and depart—and without a final MANPADS shot in the tail, no less...
Conclusion: this all sounds like a load of crap from the American military and the American media. Accordingly, either dozens of other American soldiers were killed by Iranian strikes during the evacuation of one—not all of them flew back. Or no one was planning to fly back that day or two of the operation—they dispersed throughout Iran, in order to, indeed, conduct another operation later. In the latter case, the rescue of the pilot could very well have been just a cover—to conceal the possibility of a ground invasion from their own electorate, claiming that all this was necessary to save
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