Fox News’ chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin revealed that the American crew member still stranded in Iran after his fighter jet was shot down has already been missing for somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 hours as of Friday afternoon.
Anchor Trace Gallagher asked Griffin to walk him through the latest developments at the top of the 3:00 p.m. hour.
“Trace, we’ve just learned that there was enemy fire during that rescue of one of the crew members who was successfully rescued after the F-15E was shot down in the southwest province of Iran. This is the first we have learned that there was, in fact, enemy fire that targeted at least one aircraft, if not as well as a helicopter that was part of that rescue mission. It would be incorrect to say, however, that another plane or helicopter was brought down during that rescue mission. That is not accurate,” began Griffin, who continued:
So what we have learned in the meantime since we first started reporting this hours ago, is that the F-15E was flying late at night, Thursday night. It was dark out. It was late night Eastern Time when it was shot down. That was, it was still dark in Iran at the time. It was early morning hours, but still dark when those pilots did have to eject. One of the crew members was rescued and is undergoing treatment right now.
The U.S. military was responsible for that rescue. We’ve seen visuals of special operations helicopters, Pave Hawks, that were being refueled over that area. Once it was light out, they, we understand, were part of the search and rescue for the missing crew member, as well as the one that was rescued.
“And very quickly, Jen, just the timeline here. So you’re saying that this happened Thursday night U.S. time, meaning that this missing pilot has been missing for the better part of maybe 12, 14 hours. Is that a fair assessment, Jen?” followed up Gallagher.
“I would say longer than that. If it was late night our time, you know, we’re coming up on, I would say, yeah, maybe 15 hours missing,” replied Griffin. “But again, it was early hours in Iran. Iran is seven and a half hours ahead of us, Eastern Standard Time. And so it went down in the dark, but we did see visuals of a daytime search and rescue as they were continuing to look for the missing crew member, Trace.”
Watch above via Fox News.
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