Four U.S. service members died when a refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq on Thursday as Operation Epic Fury continues.
U.S. Central Command confirmed the deaths early Friday in a post on X. The incident occurred on Thursday afternoon. A KC-135 refueling aircraft went down at approximately 1 p.m. CT on March 12.
U.S. CENTCOM stated the following:
At approximately 2 pm ET on March 12, a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft went down in western Iraq. Four of six crew members on board the aircraft have been confirmed deceased as rescue efforts continue. The circumstances of the incident are under investigation.
However, the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire. The identities of the service members are being withheld until 24 hours after next of kin have been notified.
In a previous statement about the crash released on Thursday, Central Command noted that the incident, which involved two aircraft, occurred in friendly airspace over Western Iraq. The second aircraft involved landed safely.
Four hours prior to the announcement of the crash, CENTCOM posted images on X described as a KC-135 Stratotanker refueling an F/A-18F Super Hornet over the Middle East during Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. military campaign targeting Iranian security infrastructure. It is unclear if these were the same two aircraft that were later involved in the crash.
The crash brings the total number of U.S. service members killed in the conflict thus far to 11. On March 2, CENTCOM reported that six service members had been killed in action by Iranian strikes on a facility in the Middle East. A seventh service member who was injured in the initial attacks died days later.
In a message posted on Truth Social at 11:33 pm, March 12, President Donald Trump said the U.S. is “totally destroying the terrorist regime of Iran, militarily, economically, and otherwise,” adding that “Iran’s Navy is gone, their Air Force is no longer, missiles, drones, and everything else are being decimated, and their leaders have been wiped from the face of the earth.”
“… Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today. They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honor it is to do so!” Trump wrote.
