{"id":17119,"date":"2026-03-13T04:52:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T04:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/17119\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T04:52:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T04:52:19","slug":"us-military-refueling-tanker-crashes-in-iraq-during-iran-offensive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/17119\/","title":{"rendered":"US military refueling tanker crashes in Iraq during Iran offensive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-ylk=\"elm:icon;slk:Scripps News;\" href=\"https:\/\/scrippsnews.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"Scripps News\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"211\" height=\"40\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"pr-2.5 max-w-[150px] max-h-[40px] min-[601px]:max-w-[115px]\" style=\"color:transparent;max-width:auto;max-height:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/260186c0-316b-11ee-bb75-804f26382148.png\"\/><\/a>Thu, March 12, 2026 at 9:52 PM UTC<img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1242\" height=\"828\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/bef071b7a4609567d1910060d9f8748d.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>FILE &#8211; A U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker refueling tanker aircraft flies away from the Kadena Air Base airfield in Kadena town, west of Okinawa, southern Japan, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. (AP Photo\/Hiro Komae)<\/p>\n<p> (Hiro Komae\/AP)<\/p>\n<p>A U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft was lost over Iraq on Thursday, U.S. Central Command said.<\/p>\n<p>Rescue efforts were underway after an incident involving two aircraft that were participating in Operation Epic Fury, the ongoing U.S. offensive against Iran.<\/p>\n<p>There was no immediate word on whether there were casualties.<\/p>\n<p>The incident took place in friendly airspace, CENTCOM said. The second plane involved was able to land safely.<\/p>\n<p>A source speaking to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity said the second plane involved was also a KC-135 tanker.<\/p>\n<p>The incident was not due to either hostile or friendly fire, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMore information will be made available as the situation develops,\u201d Central Command said in a statement. \u201cWe ask for continued patience to gather additional details and provide clarity for the families of service members.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The tanker is the fourth U.S. plane to go down since the war against Iran began. Last week, U.S. ally Kuwait mistakenly downed three F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets. All six crew members aboard those jets ejected and were recovered.<\/p>\n<p>This is a breaking news story. Stay with Scripps News for continued updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thu, March 12, 2026 at 9:52 PM UTC FILE &#8211; A U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker refueling tanker&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[141,2656,8712,34,94,8914,8794,2174,8707],"class_list":{"0":"post-17119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iraq","8":"tag-centcom","9":"tag-central-command","10":"tag-friendly-fire","11":"tag-iran","12":"tag-iraq","13":"tag-refueling-aircraft","14":"tag-rescue-efforts","15":"tag-u-s-central-command","16":"tag-western-iraq"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116220077532054362","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}