President Donald Trump on Monday disclosed new details about the dramatic rescue of a U.S. Air Force colonel, known by the code name “Dude Bravo 44,” who survived for roughly 36 hours in hostile Iranian territory while severely wounded before being brought to safety.
According to Trump, the downed weapons systems officer, who had been “injured quite seriously,” managed to climb more than a mile up a mountainside and tend to his own injuries while hiding in a crevice in an area “teeming with terrorists.” Despite the dangerous conditions and complications during extraction, U.S. forces ultimately succeeded in evacuating him, even as their aircraft nearly became immobilized in soft ground.
“In the United States military, we leave no American behind. We don’t do it,” Trump told reporters during a White House briefing.
Military officials described the officer’s endurance as extraordinary. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the airman’s determination and “absolute commitment to surviving” played a decisive role in the mission’s success.
Trump praised the rescue effort as “a breath-taking show of skill,” highlighting the complexity of extracting the officer from “treacherous mountain terrain.”
While the pilot of the F-15E jet was quickly located and rescued near Isfahan after the aircraft was brought down late Thursday into Friday, the colonel landed far from that location, making it significantly more difficult to locate him, Trump said.
The injured officer had to remain alive long enough for the U.S. military to organize what Trump described as “one of the largest, most complex, most harrowing combat searches … ever attempted by the military.”
“The heroic F-15 weapons system officer had evaded capture on the ground in Iran for almost 48 hours. That’s a long time when you’re in tough shape and when you’re bleeding,” Trump said.
The rescue operation involved a massive deployment of resources, including 155 aircraft made up of bombers, fighter jets, refueling tankers, and dedicated rescue planes, according to Trump.
“A lot of it was subterfuge,” the president explained. “We wanted [Iranian forces] to think he was in another location.”
As part of the mission, many aircraft were forced to fly at low altitudes, exposing them to potential enemy fire. Trump noted that “We got a helicopter with a lot of bullets in it,’’ underscoring the risks involved.
At one stage, military planes landed in a field to assemble smaller helicopters for the extraction, and Trump described how the rescue nearly failed due to environmental challenges.
He explained that wet ground conditions and the heavy weight of the aircraft created serious difficulties during takeoff. “We … had all the men jumping back onto the planes, and they got pretty well bogged down. And we had a continued contingency plan which was unbelievable,” he said.
Reflecting on the operation, Trump added, “Before the rescue was successful, ‘I would have said that was impossible,’’ emphasizing the extraordinary nature of the mission.
Gen. Caine further stressed the critical role played by the airman’s own willpower. “The single most important contributor to a successful rescue operation is the spirit of attack inside the heart of that downed aviator.
“Their will to survive, their will to evade, their will to recover, is everything. In this case, the back seater’s absolute commitment to surviving made much of our efforts possible,” he said.
“Lastly, and most importantly, to Dude Bravo 4-4, welcome home. Job well done,’’ Gen. Caine concluded.
Trump reiterated that the rescuers demonstrated “a breath-taking show of skill,” noting that the colonel, described as “highly respected,” had landed far from the pilot and was “injured quite badly and stranded in an area teeming with terrorists from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”
According to U.S. officials, Iranian forces used tracking dogs in an effort to locate the downed officer, but were unsuccessful.
“They were given a tremendous incentive to find this pilot,” Trump said. “Despite the peril, the officer followed his training and climbed into the treacherous mountain terrain and started climbing toward a higher altitude, something they were trained to do in order to evade capture.”
“You want to go as far away because they all head right to that site. You want to be as far away as you can,” he added, explaining that the officer, who was “bleeding rather profusely,” had to stabilize himself before contacting “American forces to transmit his location.”
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the agency played a key role in the operation by carrying out a deception effort to mislead Iranian forces.
He said the CIA helped “confuse the Iranians who were desperately hunting for our airman’’ and also “deployed both human assets and exquisite technologies” to locate him, comparing the task “to hunting for a single same grain of sand in the middle of a desert.”
“Our intelligence reflects that the Iranians were embarrassed and ultimately humiliated by the success of this audacious rescue mission,” Ratcliffe added.
Trump acknowledged that not all military officials initially supported the rescue plan due to the high risks involved.
“Not everybody was on board,” Trump said, noting that Gen. Dan Caine and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who stood beside him, “were totally on-board.
“There were military people that said, ‘You just don’t do this, you don’t go into the heart of a very powerful military,’” the president said. “There were people within the military that said it’s unwise.”
When asked about the number of personnel involved, Gen. Caine declined to provide specifics, saying, “I would love to keep that a secret.”
Trump, however, indicated the scale of the operation. “It was hundreds,” he said, adding, “Hundreds of people could have been killed, so we had people within the military that said this was not a wise [idea].”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also characterized the outcome as a major setback for Iran.
“Ultimately, it was an impotent Iranian threat,” he said. “And today, as the CIA director mentioned, Iran’s military, and we know this, is embarrassed and humiliated, and they should be.”
Hegseth noted that the rescue took place over the weekend and highlighted the significance of a message sent by the officer after activating his emergency signal.
“When he was finally able to activate his emergency transponder, his first message was simple and it was powerful. He sent a message, ‘God is good,’ ” Hegseth recounted.
“In that moment of isolation and danger, his faith and fighting spirit shone through,” he said. “Shot down on a Friday — Good Friday — hidden in a cave, a crevice all of Saturday, and rescued on Sunday. Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising … a pilot reborn.”