During nearly six weeks of the war on Iran, the US has suffered heavy military aircraft losses, now exceeding those recorded during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Iran’s recent downing of an American F-35 jet marks the first time in 23 years that a US fighter jet has been shot down in combat; the previous instance was in Iraq in 2003, when an A‑10 was lost.
Over the seven years of the Iraq campaign from 2003 to 2009, total US aviation losses amounted to 129 helicopters and 24 fixed‑wing aircraft, with only 46 attributed to hostile fire. The remaining cases were due to malfunctions, fuel exhaustion, and pilot error.
Since the start of the Iran war, the US has lost at least 44 aircraft, including the first incident of the US fifth-generation stealth F-35 Lightning II being hit. The list includes four F-15E Strike Eagle (the Wall Street Journal cited a fact sheet stating that the original model costs at least $31 million, while the cost of newer models is close to $100 million), two A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, two Lockheed C-130 Hercules, two Boeing E-3 Sentries, eight Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers, one Boeing CH-47 Chinook, one Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawk (damaged), two Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks (damaged), four MH-6 Little Bird helicopters, and 17 General Atomics MQ-9 Reapers (at about $30 million each, totalling close to $500 million).
High-value AWACS and multiple KC-135 tankers were damaged by Iranian strikes on regional airbases. In the first four days of the war, Iran hit almost all US military bases (or locations hosting US aircraft) in the Gulf. It struck key US ground radars linked to the THAAD air‑defense system, other early‑warning radars, and multiple radar and communication nodes.
Hellbound and Down 