{"id":325044,"date":"2026-03-20T08:12:52","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T08:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=325044"},"modified":"2026-03-21T06:43:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T06:43:50","slug":"us-f-35-damaged-by-suspected-iranian-fire-makes-emergency-landing-sources-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=325044","title":{"rendered":"US F-35 damaged by suspected Iranian fire makes emergency landing, sources say"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Haley Britzky and Oren Liebermann \u2013 CNN March 19, 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for US Central Command, said the fifth-generation stealth jet was \u201cflying a combat mission over Iran\u201d when it was forced to make an emergency landing. Hawkins said the aircraft landed safely and the incident is under investigation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe aircraft landed safely, and the pilot is in stable condition,\u201d Hawkins added. \u201cThis incident is under investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The US has lost other aircraft in the war thus far, though none known to have been hit by enemy fire. Three US F-15 fighter jets were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/03\/02\/middleeast\/us-kuwait-aircraft-crash-iran-intl-hnk\">mistakenly shot down<\/a> by Kuwaiti air defenses, with all six crew members ejecting safely. And last week, a KC-135 Stratotanker refueling aircraft <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/03\/12\/middleeast\/us-air-force-refueling-aircraft-kc135-lost-intl-hnk-ml\">crashed in western Iraq<\/a>, though the cause is still unclear. The US military said the incident was \u201cnot due to hostile fire or friendly fire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All six crew members aboard the KC-135 were killed.<\/p>\n<p>Questions remain about the timeline of the conflict and what could come next. CNN previously reported that a Marine Expeditionary Unit was heading to the region; a US official confirmed it is the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit out of Okinawa, and the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group. The USS Tripoli was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/03\/17\/middleeast\/uss-tripoli-marines-middle-east-iran-intl\">seen approaching Singapore<\/a> earlier this week.<\/p>\n<p>As the war has nearing the end of its third week, senior US officials continue to claim widespread success in its campaign against Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday morning that the US is \u201cwinning decisively\u201d and that Iran\u2019s air defenses have been \u201cflattened.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2026\/03\/19\/politics\/f-35-damage-iran-war\">Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite this Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted on Thursday morning that Iran\u2019s air defenses have been \u201cflattened.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":95945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,58,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-325044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Behind_The_News","category-Current_Affairs","category-Iran"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=325044"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325045,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325044\/revisions\/325045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/95945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=325044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=325044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=325044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}