It was 3.30am and pitch black when an Iranian Shahed drone hit the canopy of a US Apache helicopter off the coast of Oman.
In normal circumstances, the AH-64 aircraft and its two pilots would have been incinerated on impact, but the drone’s warhead ignited but did not explode.
Instead the aircraft, with the burning drone lodged in its side, became inoperable, giving the crew only moments to issue a distress call before ditching into water below.
In a scene reminiscent of a sci-fi movie, they were then located and picked up by a water-borne Corsair drone operated by the US navy, before being winched aboard a second helicopter.
“The soldiers were safely rescued within approximately two hours and are in stable condition,” US Central Command announced on Monday. “The cause of the incident is under investigation.”
The Apache pilots were located and picked up by a water-borne Corsair drone operated by the US navy – CENTCOM
The downing of the US Apache provided the spark that reignited intense fighting between the US and Iran over the last few days.
But analysts say it was a clandestine US oil-running operation the helicopter was involved in and the parlous state of the US-Iran peace talks that caused it to flare.
As reported by The Telegraph a week ago, the US has been using helicopters to guide commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz in secret for some time.
Dozens of mostly US-flagged vessels have been shepherded through the strategic waterway on a route that hugs close to the Omani coast.
0605 Transit of the Strait of Hormuz
With their transponders switched off and often sailing under cover of darkness to avoid detection, they have been able to avoid Iranian detection.
The Apaches patrol above them, engaging and neutralising Iranian drones and fast boats where necessary.
“Last month, I directed our Great U.S. Military to execute a secret mission to support Oil Tankers and other Commercial Ships through the Strait of Hormuz,” Donald Trump said on his Truth Social website on Wednesday.
The operation had allowed about 200 commercial ships to cross the strait and 100 million barrels of crude oil to reach global markets, the US president claimed.
Given that around 135 ships per day navigate the strait in peacetime, the oil-running operation was small-beer, but it will nevertheless have agitated Tehran, which, since the break out of hostilities in February, has laid claim to the waterway.
Without the “ace card” of control of the strait, it has little leverage over the US, so could ill afford a leak of vessels escaping its trap becoming a flood, say analysts.
1006 Apache AH-64E
Iran has repeatedly attacked commercial ships seeking to transit without its permission since February and – after the downing of the Apache on Monday – warned that any foreign military forces near Iranian territory were “at constant risk”.
The Omani route through the strait is just 34 nautical miles (about 39 miles) from Iran at the narrowest point.
Iran sought to characterise the attack on the US Apache as an accident, but Mr Trump said it was one to which the US “must, of necessity, respond”.
And respond it has.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, US forces hit Iranian targets across southern Iran.
Most were military targets, but a drinking water storage facility serving 20,000 people in the arid Hormozgan province was also hit, prompting allegations of possible war crimes.
Credit: Iranian State Media
Then on Wednesday, the US fired 49 Tomahawk missiles from ships in the Gulf, with more munitions dropped by US jets, according to Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary.
“We’ll bomb the s–t out of them,” said Mr Trump shortly before operations began on Wednesday night.
It is not one way traffic.
For two days, Iran has fired back launching ballistic missiles and drones at US targets across the Gulf.
Credit: X/@CENTCOM
On Tuesday, Iran struck the Middle East headquarters of the US navy in Bahrain, home to the US Fifth Fleet.
And on Wednesday it responded with strikes on US military assets in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain.
It is unclear what, if any, damage has been caused to the US bases targeted by Iran, but the US state department warned people in Jordan to “seek overhead cover and shelter in place immediately” early on Thursday.
“Reports indicate missiles, drones, or rockets are in Jordanian airspace,” its TravelGov social media account said.
The tit-for-tat strikes mark the biggest exchange of hostilities since Tehran and Washington agreed a ceasefire on April 8.
The situation was made all the more acute by Iran’s military command centre announcing on Thursday that it had once again closed the Strait of Hormuz.
The vital waterway, through which a fifth of global oil supplies typically pass, would be closed to all vessels “effective immediately”, and that “any vessels crossing the strait will be targeted”, it said.
Credit: X/@MarioNawfal
For oil and commodity traders, as well as diplomats, the confrontation presents a clear and present danger of a return to all-out war.
Mr Trump’s Truth Social post on Thursday will not have calmed those fears.
“At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela,” he said.
Mr Trump later called off air strikes on Iran planned for Thursday and claimed a deal with Tehran was imminent.
Rystad Energy said oil prices could jump towards $150 a barrel if hostilities escalated, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
“The next few days will be critical in determining whether diplomacy can reassert itself or whether the conflict moves into a more sustained escalation cycle,” said Jorge León, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad.
Humanitarian agencies are also braced for the worst.
The World Food Programme reported on Wednesday that 45 million additional people now face critical levels of food insecurity as a direct result of the closure of the strait, through which much of the world’s fertiliser normally flows.
“There have been impacts on energy markets, on trade, on shipping, and all these are combining to create this cost of living crisis affecting millions of people,” Dr Jean-Martin Bauer, the World Food Programme’s director of food security analysis, told The Telegraph.
Also adding to tension in the strait are the negotiations between the US and Iran over a permanent peace and the desire of both sides to emerge as winners.The talks have been running since April 8 and although Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed an agreement is all but ready to be signed, nothing concrete has yet emerged.
The major sticking points, according to sources close to the talks, include: the detail of Iranian commitments on disposing of its enriched Uranium, the length of time it is prepared to agree to a moratorium on civil nuclear development, the sequencing of the lifting of US sanctions and the return of some $24bn (£18bn) in frozen Iranian assets.
In any circumstances, negotiating such a deal would be testing (as Barack Obama, the former US president, who negotiated the first Iranian nuclear deal, can attest) but to do it in rapid time during a conflict may yet prove too much.
“Iran is all talk and no action,” Mr Trump raged on social media on Wednesday. “They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!”