{"id":18757,"date":"2026-03-14T05:20:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T05:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/18757\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T05:20:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T05:20:34","slug":"us-air-force-kc-135-goes-down-in-iraq-centcom-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/18757\/","title":{"rendered":"US Air Force KC-135 goes down in Iraq, CENTCOM says"},"content":{"rendered":"

A U.S. Air Force KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in friendly airspace in western Iraq on Thursday during ongoing combat operations against Iran<\/a>, U.S. Central Command announced. <\/p>\n

All six crew members were killed<\/a>, according to the statement.<\/p>\n

Two aircraft were reportedly involved in the incident, the statement read, and \u201cone of the aircraft went down.\u201d The second aircraft landed safely, it added. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe incident was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire,\u201d the release said. <\/p>\n

The initial CENTCOM statement did not clarify whether the aircraft had crashed, noting only that \u201cU.S. Central Command is aware of the loss a U.S. KC-135.\u201d <\/p>\n

Numerous KC-135s are currently deployed to the U.S. Central Command area of operations, where crews have provided aerial refueling for other aircraft as a part of Operation Epic Fury. <\/p>\n

The downed KC-135 is the fourth manned U.S. aircraft to be lost this month amid combat operations against the Islamic Republic. <\/p>\n

On March 1, three U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets<\/a> were shot down by a Kuwaiti F\/A-18 in a friendly fire incident, U.S. Central Command announced<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n

All six F-15 crew members ejected and were safely recovered.<\/p>\n

A total of 13 U.S. service members have been killed during combat actions and roughly 140 more wounded<\/a> \u2014 eight severely \u2014 across the opening two weeks of Operation Epic Fury.<\/p>\n

Another service member<\/a>, an Army National Guard officer who also served as a New York City policeman, died on March 6 following a non-combat incident.<\/p>\n

Additional information regarding the incident Thursday was not yet available as of press time. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe ask for continued patience to gather additional details and provide clarity for the families of service members,\u201d the CENTCOM statement read. <\/p>\n

J.D. Simkins is Editor-in-Chief of Military Times and Defense News, and a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A U.S. Air Force KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed in friendly airspace in western Iraq on Thursday during ongoing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1726,2539,2932,1530,2933,1529,1528,2930,34,94,8951,2540,212,9536],"class_list":{"0":"post-18757","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iraq","8":"tag-air-force","9":"tag-circulated-air-force-times","10":"tag-circulated-army-times","11":"tag-circulated-defense-news","12":"tag-circulated-marine-corps-times","13":"tag-circulated-military-times","14":"tag-circulated-navy-times","15":"tag-dn-dnr","16":"tag-iran","17":"tag-iraq","18":"tag-kc135","19":"tag-military-times","20":"tag-operation-epic-fury","21":"tag-refueler"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116225849678956925","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18757","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=18757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}