US Central Command officials say ‘incident occurred in friendly airspace during Operation Epic Fury’

Jason Burke in JerusalemFri 13 Mar 2026 08.05 CET

Rescue efforts were underway on Friday as the US military sought to find and extract the crew of a US military refuelling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq on Thursday.

It was unclear if the crew of the KC-135 aircraft had been harmed in the incident, which US Central Command said involved another aircraft but was not the result of hostile or friendly fire. At least five crew were reportedly onboard.

Iraq’s western desert is a vast expanse of largely empty rocky plains but is also where many Iran-aligned Shia militia have bases and has been the site of repeated Israeli and US airstrikes.

Elsewhere, a French soldier was killed in an attack in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Friday. It is the first French military death in the war.

Since the joint US-Israeli offensive in Iran last month plunged the Middle East into war, multiple attacks attributed to pro-Iranian factions have targeted the region where foreign forces are based as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition.

The pro-Iranian Ashab Alkahf group in Iraq warned on its Telegram page that French interests “in Iraq and the region” would be “under targeting fire” after the arrival of a French aircraft carrier.

The US has surged a huge fleet of aircraft into the Middle East to take part in operations against Iran and has deployed specialist search and rescue units to extract downed airmen.

In a statement, US Central Command said it was carrying out rescue efforts after the aircraft went down. A second aircraft involved in the reported accident landed safely.

“The incident occurred in friendly airspace during Operation Epic Fury, and rescue efforts are ongoing,” the statement said, using the name of the US operation against Iran.

It is the fourth US aircraft lost since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on 28 February. Earlier this month, three US air force fighter jets were mistakenly shot down in a friendly fire incident by Kuwait air defences. All crew members in those jets ejected safely.

update: The crew, 6 people died.

(C)THE GUARDIAN 2026