A US Air Force colonel recounted on Monday his story of survival after his F-15E fighter jet was shot down over Iran in April, in the early months of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran. The aviator, who broke his back, an arm and a shoulder after hitting the ground at such high speed, hid and survived 50 hours behind enemy lines before his rescue. He spoke on CBS News about the incident and was referred to as Bravo, his mission call sign, due to security threats. Bravo was the backseater, the weapons-systems officer on a two-man crew with the mission call sign Dude 44. The pilot was Alpha. CBS News asked Admiral Brad Cooper, US Central Command (CENTCOM) chief, what brought the fighter jet to a mountainous area south of the city of Isfahan, close to where Iran had been keeping much of its highly enriched nuclear material. “Their mission that evening was to conduct a strike on industrial facilities related to both the drone and the missile program, not related to the Isfahan nuclear facility,” Cooper said. The plane's mission call sign was DUDE 44. It was an F-15E, a type of two-seat fighter that's been a workhorse of US air combat operations for decades. The $30 million jet was brought down by a shoulder-fired missile that can cost around $100,000. Moments of terror In his first public account of what happened, Bravo said when the missile hit, it was as “getting hit by a freight train.” He and Alpha did everything they could to try to save the fighter jet. It quickly became clear the plane couldn't be saved, so the pair ejected. The US aviator free-fell to the ground at an estimated 110-160 kilometers per hour; the Iranian shoulder-fired missile had damaged his parachute. “At one point when I looked up and saw no parachute, that was the most terrifying thing I've ever seen,” Bravo said in his first public account of what happened. “So I paused, right then, and I prayed, ‘Lord, your will be done. But if I'm getting through this, I need help.’” Help took two days to come. Bravo hid and survived two days behind enemy lines before his rescue. He calls it a “modern-day miracle.” Learning of the downed crew in the US Back in the United States, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was woken in the middle of the night with the news. He said he immediately jumped to the next steps: asking if the crew was OK, and whether Iran knew what had happened. “Whether they're alive or not, we're going to go get them,” he said. Evidence of the wreckage was shared by Iranian media, and videos emerged online of armed groups hunting for the downed crew. According to US military sources, Iranians got to within a few hundred meters of Bravo. Six hours in, the US was able to rescue Alpha in a risky daytime raid. American helicopters in the rescue force took fire. “It was a gun fight all the way in and all the way out,” Hegseth said. “But they got Alpha back.” The job was only half done. Alpha's rescue force was unable to find Bravo and withdrew. But as night fell on that first day in Iran, Bravo was able to send a message back home. A rescue force was almost sent in not long after, but Hegseth said “it just didn't line up.” “That was a really tough decision,” he said. “I'll never forget, you know, being in the situation room and saying, ‘OK, I guess we're gonna roll 24,’ which means, ‘Hey, Bravo's going to be out there for basically 24 hours more.’” CIA played pivotal role in rescue The CIA played a pivotal role in Bravo's rescue. The agency launched a multi-pronged deception campaign to confuse Iranian forces looking for Bravo. It also used top-secret technology to pinpoint Bravo's location. To clear the way for Bravo's rescue, newly declassified video shows American bombers and drones hit Iran's Revolutionary Guard forces nearby where he was hiding. Then it was time to go back in for Bravo. There were over 90 US service members on the ground — the first US boots on the ground in Iran in 46 years, Cooper said. Several hundred people were in the air, and several thousand served as support in the rescue mission. Bravo said it was “one of the greatest moments of my life” when he saw his rescuers. But Bravo and the others on the ground were not yet out of danger. The rescue planes' landing gear was stuck in the desert sand of the makeshift airstrip. The planes could not take off, and more than 90 of what Cooper described as the military's “most elite service members” were stuck until a clandestine Air Force unit came to the rescue. The US destroyed the two marooned aircraft, worth about $100 million each, as well as the Little Bird helicopters, so the technology wouldn't fall into Iranian hands. Fifty hours after being shot down, Bravo was safe. Not long after leaving Iran, Bravo called his wife back home in the US. “I was really proud of her and grateful for the strength that she showed,” Bravo said. The officer says he wants the American people to know that the rescue is about more than what he went through. Alpha, who ejected safely and was rescued before Bravo, is already back flying for the Air Force. “I am still in awe of the professionalism and tactical prowess of the Combat Search and Rescue specialists and the Joint Force who executed the rescue missions of me and DUDE 44 Bravo, both those in theater and behind the scenes,” Alpha said in a statement. “Words cannot capture how thankful my family and I are and how proud I am to serve alongside each and every one of them.”
