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A US F-35 stealth fighter jet sustained damage from suspected Iranian fire and was forced to make an emergency landing at a US air base in the Middle East, according to two sources familiar with the matter, marking the first known instance of Iran striking an American aircraft since the war began in late February.
Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for US Central Command, confirmed the fifth-generation stealth jet was "flying a combat mission over Iran" when it was compelled to land under emergency conditions. "The aircraft landed safely, and the pilot is in stable condition," Hawkins said, adding that the incident is under investigation.
The sources indicated the jet was hit by what is believed to be Iranian fire, though the precise nature of the weapon used, whether ground-based air defense, a surface-to-air missile, or another system, has not been publicly disclosed. No further details about the extent of the damage were immediately available.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a statement claiming direct responsibility for the strike, providing a sharply different account of the incident's severity. According to Ali Cabuk, a Tehran-based regional correspondent for NTV, Türkiye's first 24-hour news channel, the IRGC said the US F-35 was hit at approximately 2:50 a.m. local time in central Iranian airspace by what it described as an advanced, next-generation air defense system operated by the Revolutionary Guards' Aerospace Force.
The IRGC statement said the aircraft sustained heavy damage, and asserted that the jet's fate remains unclear and is still being assessed, with the probability of a crash being high. US Central Command has not confirmed those claims, stating only that the aircraft landed safely and the pilot was in stable condition.
The IRGC's version of events contrasts markedly with the US account. Washington has acknowledged the emergency landing but characterized it as a successful recovery of both the aircraft and the pilot. The gap between the two narratives could not be independently reconciled.
It is worth noting that Iran has previously claimed to have shot down F-35s during the 12-day war with Israel in June 2025, assertions that were later found to be unsubstantiated.
During that earlier conflict, Iranian media circulated images purportedly showing wreckage of Israeli F-35I jets, but the evidence was widely assessed as fabricated or digitally manipulated, and the Israeli military categorically denied the claims.
The emergency landing is notable in its timing, coming even as senior US officials have projected confidence about the trajectory of the campaign. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday morning that the United States is "winning decisively" and that Iran's air defenses have been "flattened."
Both the US and Israel are flying F-35s in the conflict, with individual aircraft carrying a price tag upward of $100 million.
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