One of the two crew members of an American F-15E fighter-bomber is still being sought by the United States and Iran this Saturday, April 4. US Army pilots are trained to face this type of situation during their training.
Washington and Tehran have the same goal since Friday, April 3: to find one of the two occupants of the American F-15E fighter-bomber that the Iranian army claims to have shot down in the southwest of the country, in the Khuzestan region. The second crew member was rescued by US special forces, according to American media outlets like Axios and CBS News.
US Air Force pilots like the one currently being sought in Iran are trained to experience these scenarios. They undergo a training program called SERE (“Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Extraction”).
“This program teaches them that once they are ejected from the fighter jet, they must find the best hiding spot or escape depending on the environment they are in,” explained former Colonel Cedric Leighton to CNN.
Hide while remaining accessible
A pilot stranded in hostile territory must evade enemy detection while staying accessible for rescue teams to extract them. This could involve going on a rooftop in an urban area or finding a clearing for a helicopter to land.
“And if I move, I will try to do so at night to avoid being detected,” advised Houston Cantwell, former US military pilot and expert at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies interviewed by AFP.
Another key aspect in such situations is constant access to water. “You can survive without food for a while, but you need water every day,” emphasized Houston Cantwell.
Shot down by Bosnian Serbs in June 1995 and rescued after six days of searching, Captain Scott O’Grady used a sponge to drink water, allowing him to collect rainwater and soil moisture.
One of the instructions from the SERE program is also to activate the radio beacon carried by emergency ejected pilots, so they can be located by military personnel coming to their aid.
“These beacons cannot be activated constantly, otherwise the pilots could be detected by the enemy,” explained Admiral Jean-Louis Vichot to BFMTV, former French military mission leader at NATO. “Typically, they only transmit on frequencies known to those searching for them,” he added.
High-risk operations for the military
In parallel, during military operations like the one in Iran, each branch of the US military keeps specialized troops on alert to extract pilots. “The Americans quickly assembled everything needed on site. It’s ready all the time because we know that (this type of situation) can happen,” highlighted General Jean-Paul Paloméros, former NATO allied commander, on BFMTV.
Military personnel involved in these extraction operations take considerable risks themselves. In footage filmed in the region where the pilot of the downed plane in Iran is being sought, an American helicopter is seen flying at low altitudes and being targeted by Iranians armed with firearms.
“These are the kinds of things that we would only do in a situation where we are ready to take very high risks because the goal is very important, namely saving lives,” summarized Aaron McLean, national security analyst, on CBS.
