Washington — An American military aerial refueling tanker that was involved in the U.S. military operation in Iran crashed in western Iraq on Thursday, multiple U.S. officials told CBS News.
The U.S. military later confirmed that a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker went down. It said early Friday that at least four of the six crew members were killed. Rescue efforts were still underway for the two other crew members, U.S. Central Command said in a statement.
A second Stratotanker was damaged but landed safely.
The first plane went down near Turaibil, which is along the Iraqi-Jordanian border, an Iraqi intelligence source told CBS News.
According to flight tracking service FlightRadar24, a KC-135 tanker declared an emergency before landing in Tel Aviv Thursday evening.
U.S. Central Command released a statement Thursday afternoon saying both aircraft were involved in the same incident, and it was not caused by hostile fire or friendly fire.
The crash brings the total number of U.S. service members killed since the start of the war with Iran to 11.
This marks the fourth publicly acknowledged aircraft to crash as a part of Operation Epic Fury. Last Monday, the U.S. military also confirmed that three F-15E Strike Eagles were downed in a friendly-fire incident involving Kuwait, but all six crew members safely ejected.
Each branch of service has its own terminology for launching recovery missions of a downed aircraft but generally they’re called Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel, or TRAP, missions. These types of missions rapidly deploy after an aircraft crash and can be dangerous, as U.S. forces race to secure the crash site before enemy forces can. The goal is to retrieve pilots or crew members — who may be injured or deceased — and retrieve or destroy sensitive equipment that remains intact.