A video shared by Tehran Times claims to show the moment a US F-35 fighter jet was hit during a combat mission over Iranian airspace. The clip shows the aircraft appearing to take damage, with explosions, smoke trails, and the jet veering off course mid-air.
A US F-35 fighter jet was attacked during an Iranian strike and forced to make an emergency landing at a military base in the Middle East, according to CNN. The claim, first made by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), would mark the first known instance of Iran hitting one of the US military’s most advanced and expensive aircraft in the ongoing conflict in Middle East.
According to the IRGC, the stealth jet was struck by air defence systems over central Iran in the early hours of Thursday. A video shared by Tehran Times claims to show the moment a US F-35 fighter jet was hit during a combat mission over Iranian airspace. The clip shows the aircraft appearing to take damage, with explosions, smoke trails, and the jet veering off course midair.
In a statement, the IRGC said it had “struck and seriously damaged” the aircraft at around 2.50 am (local time), adding that the jet’s fate remains unclear and that there is a “high possibility” it may have crashed. The group also said the operation followed the interception of more than 125 US-Israeli drones, calling it evidence of improvements in Iran’s air defence systems.
If confirmed, the incident would mark the first time Iran has successfully targeted an F-35, a fifth-generation fighter jet that costs more than $100 million and is considered a cornerstone of US air power. Both the US and Israel have been deploying F-35s extensively since the conflict escalated on February 28.
US CONFIRMS EMERGENCY LANDING, PLAYS DOWN DAMAGE
According to CNN, US Central Command said the aircraft was “flying a combat mission over Iran” when it was forced to make an emergency landing. “The aircraft landed safely, and the pilot is in stable condition,” spokesman Captain Tim Hawkins told CNN. “This incident is under investigation.”
However, Washington has not issued any official statement. The Pentagon said its operations are going as planned, with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth saying the US is “winning decisively” and that Iran’s air defences have been “flattened”.
Amid escalating conflict, at least 16 US aircraft have reportedly been destroyed since the start of the war, including 10 Reaper drones, while several others have been damaged in combat or accidents.
[ADDENDUM]
The actual video of the event, plus more, from The Hindustan Times:
Remember when the Yugoslavian army shot down a couple of F117 stealth bombers using some crappy old russian gear and the Americans had to stop jerking each other off about their invisible killing machine and take their toys home? It’s like that.
Doubt it, that was just some swamp gas reflecting Venus’s light off noctilucent clouds.
The best is yet to come!
I would be so incredibly mad as the AA battery cmdr if I witnessed a direct hit and the jet just continued to fly lol.
I can literally see the War Thunder “hit” message
Fucking hitboxes are janky AF in this latest update!!
Lol, the modern warfare hot indicator. Listen, you can hear it.
x
See?
x
No, no you would not be.
Because now you have some of the most valuable targetting data on Earth.
Iran, Russia and China will be pouring over all of that data, using it to figure out how to replicate a successful tracking and interception with their existing systems, or new ones.
If you were a real War Thunder player, you’d be leaking that information on the forums.
… do people not get this?
That… this is the start of F35s just… not really being stealth, in at least certain situations?
Where the… US and other F35 operators… may not know what those ‘certain situations’ are?
6 months, a year, 2 years from now, the US no longer can just assume it will get air superiority.
That… kinda … blows up a good deal of our military doctrine.
Do you notice how the F35 … isn’t even doing evasive manuevers?
Is not deploying countermeasures?
It didn’t know it was being targetted.
That’s a really big problem.
Buddy chill its not that deep. He flew too low and in the range of an IR missile battery that they failed to spot as part of their SIGINT. That’s why they have video, he was so close that radar stealth literally would not matter. It even explains the small missile warhead size.
And DAS missile detectors have been pretty awful at being able to detect missiles due to their tiny package size. There’s no gg ez RWR for passive tracking missiles.
They’re flying sorties more brashly because they thought AA was taken care of, which is how this ambush succeeded.
Yes it’s defnitley a first for successfully hitting the F-35, but this isn’t some groundbreaking concept. It would have been huge news if they targeted the F-35 at a BVR range with active tracking like with a radar or data link solution.
Like I said, I’m sure the soldiers were super excited that they got a hit, but they would defnitley have preferred to have scored a full kill with a pilot ejection and subsequent capture.
What the heck is this informed speculation? There is only room for mindless speculation here on lemmy. You need to be as ill-informed as possible to be able to comment on these things.
Still a better experience than reddit lol
they would defnitley have preferred to have scored a full kill with a pilot ejection and subsequent capture.
Iran is not stupid, they know how much an F35 costs and how to drain the US.
… You can make a larger missile, with a larger warhead, that is IR guided.
We have no idea what altitude that F35 was flying at, we don’t know where the IR camera that took that video was mounted at.
The missile comes in from an angle totally different to the camera’s POV… you sure there was no datalink involved in that?
You can put more, cheaper than BVR radar, IR sensors in more places, maybe even make a drone swarm of them, network them together, fly them around in orbital patrol patterns, have a corresponding network of ground based IR missile launchers.
Aerial version of Defense in Depth.
So if your threat environment looks like that, what, do you just blast out active jamming, to try and degrade/disable/overwhelm the datalinks between the IR sensor network?
Now you’re an EM homing beacon, now something akin to SEAD works against you.
You could even put IR sensors on ground tethered balloons, with a physical data link, around areas / things you know you can’t hide.
All of American’s adversaries are going to want to exchange notes with Iran on how they managed that.
Looks like it was done via thermals, stealth aircraft is for radar to my knowledge, and maybe not the most effective against thermal targeting. I could be wrong though
Stealth just means low observable, there are ways to reduce the IR signature of jet engines, at the expense of either thrust or even more complex and expensive systems, such as what the F-22/F-23 use.
Pretty much, thermals require being much closer and are only good from certain directions, so the stealth is entirely focused against radar missiles that can be shot from far out of sight and don’t need to be behind the enemy
A video shared by Tehran Times claims to show the moment a US F-35 fighter jet was hit during a combat mission over Iranian airspace. The clip shows the aircraft appearing to take damage, with explosions, smoke trails, and the jet veering off course midair.
Where’s the video showing this.
That video cuts off when the missile detonates, the next 2-3 seconds would show if the aircraft was damaged or not. We certainly don’t see ‘smoke trails’ (other than from the missile) or the jet veering off course.
It could be a video of a near miss, but there’s not enough video to say anything. This video isn’t exactly from a trustworthy source, the IRGC has an obvious motivation to fabricate stories.
In addition, that same video could be made in a computer game like DCS in an hour or so.
So it could show a near-miss on an F-35 or it could be the result of some IRCG operation who read the same reporting of jets landing with damage, faked a video to blast across the Internet and gave them to people like OP to blast across the Internet.
This has all of the red flags of misinformation.
The US confirmed the hit and did not show the damage. Meaning it is likely destroyed.
Looked like “mechanical failure” to me…
These turds sat on a runway for over a year with software issues.
it will buff off, really
Stelth 👨 (imagine the stonks meme template)
Still safer than Boeing.
That’s it then. Canada, buy those Gripens and avoid the F35s.
I don’t know much about the Gripen but I don’t think buying anything that’s relies on the US is a good choice.
Gripen can also sneak up on, out-manoveur and take down F35s btw.
Good for the pilot he made it back to base but that F35 is as good as lost more than likely with the costs of repair these things have
That’s actually a very good point.
If the things cost roughly $100 million each… yeah that’s not gonna be a cheap or easy repair, may actually just make more sense to part it out.
The current Hegseth administration has also removed the requirements for Right to Repair from DOD contracts, so Lockheed can charge as many millions as they want on repairs
I just know we’re all just waiting for their toddler in chief to publicly call the pilots losers and suckers. “I like pilots who don’t get shot down.”
Welp.
That was much faster than even I was expecting.
Iran said they were holding back due to ramadan cuz its a holy month and they shouldn’t be doing war in holy months.
Eid Mubarak, America.
I’m not glad for this war, but given that it is happening, I gotta admit that I am glad to see US hubris challenged so thoroughly
God damn russia hit the jackpot getting this pedophile in office
The pilots view may differ.
Well yeah, the pilots view was out from the cockpit.
Nah.
It was a good hit, but not a shoot down.
The aircraft and pilot landed at some nearby airbase, not sure if the specific base has been reported, but the US did confirm the F35 was hit, made it back.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/19/politics/f-35-damage-iran-war
A US F-35 fighter jet made an emergency landing at US air base in the Middle East after it was struck by what is believed to be Iranian fire, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for US Central Command, said the fifth-generation stealth jet was “flying a combat mission over Iran” when it was forced to make an emergency landing. Hawkins said the aircraft landed safely and the incident is under investigation.
“The aircraft landed safely, and the pilot is in stable condition,” Hawkins added. “This incident is under investigation.”
The incident would be the first time Iran has hit a US aircraft in the war started in late February. Both the US and Israel are flying F-35s in the conflict; the aircraft costs upwards of $100 million.
This is the CNN report that my original link, and cited quote, sources.
the pilot is in stable condition
That seems to suggest the pilot was injured. The way the US down plays anything that goes wrong, it makes me think it was probably pretty serious.
Yeah no worries. I was just making a silly joke about different views.
I know, I know, I just wanted to be … well I guess at this point, excercise more journalistic integrity than the majority of US media.
That’s good and commendable. Sorry that you had to waste it on my sillyness though :D
I’m an Autist, this is fun for me, hahaha!
Most excellent! I’m glad I could offer a chance for entertainment lol
A plane that cost $1trillion dollars to develop was almost taken out by normal munitions. If this can be done again Americans air superiority is cooked.
But the purpose of these planes is to please shareholders.
Yeah but it has 3 more cupholders than Chinese fighter jets and Apple Carplay.
Duck US imperialism, but its stealth not bulletproof, 1 getting shot doesn’t really show anything.
I’d imagine an important part of stealth is not being targeted in the first place
Two now.
If this can be done again Americans air superiority is cooked.
Wouldn’t that depend on how successful US is at shooting down Chinese planes and how many planes each one has? If China can damage one F-35 in, let’s say, 5% of the missions US is sending but US can shoot down 90% of Chinese fighters it sees and they have similar numbers of planes, wouldn’t US still have air superiority?
Considering the Chinese have all of our F-35 development blueprints and all our other development blueprints, yeah shit is fucked. Opsec for DoD contractors has been trash for at least twenty years and before that it was easy enough to simply bribe someone because healthcare costs compromise almost every us citizen.
I mean yeah, theoretically, but that ain’t happening. China is a peer competitor with the same level of technology as the US, while Iran is a scrappy underdog. China also massively outproduces the US.
Let’s hope we will never find out if that’s true.
Or if we do, it’s a limited engagement that doesn’t end with nukes flying. Iran winning this war will make future wars less likely, so I’m hoping for that as well.
Do you remember last year when Pakistan shot down 3 rafaels? It was chinese aircrafts operating chinese missiles. Only the pilots were Pakistani.
Yeah, my numbers are just examples. What I’m saying is that one hit doesn’t end air superiority. You need to know how effective both sides are at eliminating targets.
ding ding ding
Winner! Winner!
Oh man, Taiwan is so fucked.
Sadly yes, along with South Korea and Japan.
And kablamo, now we have Orwell’s EastAsia.
God fucking damnit.
