WASHINGTON (AP) — All six crew members of a KC-135 refueling aircraft that crashed while supporting operations against Iran are dead, the U.S. military said Friday.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, said the crash in western Iraq on Thursday followed an unspecified incident involving two aircraft in “friendly airspace” and that the other plane landed safely.
The crash brings the U.S. death toll in Operation Epic Fury to at least 13 service members, with the seven others killed in combat. About 140 U.S. service members have been injured, including eight severely, the Pentagon said earlier this week.
The KC-135 has been in service for more than 60 years and has been involved in several fatal accidents, most recently in 2013.
Here’s what is known so far about the tanker, which is the fourth U.S. military aircraft publicly acknowledged to have crashed since the war against Iran began on Feb. 28:
Cause of crash not immediately known
U.S. Central Command said the circumstances of the crash are under investigation but that the loss of the aircraft was “not due to hostile or friendly fire.”
A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the developing situation, said the other plane involved was also a KC-135. Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., wrote on X that the other plane landed safely in Israel.
Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday morning that the crash occurred “over friendly territory in western Iraq, while the crew was on a combat mission” and reiterated that hostile or friendly fire was not the cause.
Speaking at the same news conference, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the crew heroes.
“War is hell. War is chaos,” Hegseth said. “And as we saw yesterday with the tragic crash of our KC-135 tanker, bad things can happen. American heroes, all of them.”
Hegseth and Caine spoke to reporters before the deaths of the six crew member had been made public.
Yang Uk, a security expert at South Korea’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said it would be rare for a refueling tanker to be downed by enemy fire because such operations are usually conducted in the rear of combat zones.
Last week, three U.S. F-15E fighter jets were mistakenly downed by friendly Kuwaiti fire. All six crew members ejected safely.
The KC-135 is a long-serving tanker plane
The KC-135 Stratotanker is a U.S. Air Force aircraft used to refuel other planes in midair, allowing them to travel longer distances and maintain operations longer without landing. The plane is also used to transport wounded personnel during medical evacuations or conduct surveillance missions, according to military experts.
Based on the same design as the Boeing 707 passenger plane, the tanker has been in service for more than 60 years, supporting the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps as well as allied aircraft, according to an Air Force description. The aging plane is set to be gradually phased out as more of the next-generation KC-46A Pegasus tankers enter service.
Despite upgrades over the years, the age of the KC-135s has raised concerns about their reliability and durability.
