Congressional report tallies 42 US aircraft lost or damaged in Operation Epic Fury

A Congressional Research Service report released this month tallied 42 U.S. aircraft lost or damaged during Operation Epic Fury, the 40-day campaign against Iran that began Feb. 28. It is the most complete public accounting of a war the Pentagon has yet to assess on its own terms.The May 13 report, “U.S. Aircraft Combat Losses in Operation Epic Fury: Considerations for Congress,” draws on news accounts and statements by the Defense Department and U.S. Central Command to compile the list. The CRS, the nonpartisan research arm of the Library of Congress, works from open sources and has no access to classified damage assessments.The CRS authors note their count “may remain subject to revision due to multiple factors, which may include classification, ongoing combat activity, and attribution.”The first losses came March 1-2, when a Kuwaiti Air Force F/A-18 Hornet mistakenly shot down three F-15E Strike Eagles over Kuwait. All six aircrew ejected and were recovered. The shoot-down occurred during active combat that included attacks from Iranian aircraft, ballistic missiles and drones, CENTCOM said.A fourth F-15E was shot down over Iran on April 3, with both crew members recovered in separate search-and-rescue operations.A KC-135 Stratotanker went down over western Iraq on March 12 during a refueling sortie, killing all six aircrew. The crew members are the only fatalities on the CRS list. The loss was not the result of hostile or friendly fire, CENTCOM said. A second KC-135 involved in the same incident landed safely at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel.The toll on the tanker fleet grew two days later, when Iranian missiles and drones struck Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, damaging five more KC-135s on the ground and bringing total tanker losses to seven.An F-35A Lightning II took Iranian ground fire over Iran on March 19 and returned to base.Iran hit Prince Sultan again on March 27, damaging an E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control aircraft. A May 7 Washington Post r