4 crew members killed in crash of American KC-135 refueling aircraft in Iraq, U.S. military confirms

The U.S. military’s Central Command confirmed early Friday that at least four U.S. service members were killed the previous day when an aerial refueling aircraft taking part in operations against Iran crashed in western Iraq. CENTCOM said rescue efforts were still underway for two other crew members.

“At approximately 2 pm ET on March 12, a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft went down in western Iraq. Four of six crew members on board the aircraft have been confirmed deceased as rescue efforts continue. The circumstances of the incident are under investigation. However, the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire,” CENTCOM said in its statement, shared on social media. 

It said the identities of the service members killed in the crash would be withheld until 24 hours after their families were notified. The crash brings the total number of U.S. service members killed since the U.S. and Israel launched the war with Iran on Feb. 28 to 11, including six forces killed in an Iranian strike on Kuwait and one killed in Saudi Arabia. 

U.S. officials have told CBS News they believe the incident may have involved a mid-air collision, but they were still investigating.  

Officials told CBS News on Thursday that a second U.S. Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker was damaged but landed safely Thursday, but there were no further details available on that aircraft by Friday morning. According to flight tracking service FlightRadar24, a KC-135 tanker declared an emergency before landing in Tel Aviv Thursday evening.

The first plane went down near Turaibil, which is along the Iraqi-Jordanian border, an Iraqi intelligence source told CBS News.

Central Command said in a previous statement on Thursday that both aircraft were involved in the same incident, which was not caused by hostile or friendly fire.

It was the fourth publicly acknowledged U.S. aircraft crash connected to Operation Epic Fury. Last Monday, the U.S. military confirmed that three F-15E Strike Eagles were shot down in a friendly-fire incident involving Kuwait, but all six crew members safely ejected.  

Each branch of service has its own terminology for launching recovery missions of a downed aircraft but generally they’re called Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel, or TRAP, missions. These types of missions rapidly deploy after an aircraft crash and can be dangerous, as U.S. forces race to secure the crash site before enemy forces can. The goal is to retrieve pilots or crew members — who may be injured or deceased — and retrieve or destroy sensitive equipment that remains intact.