A US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker tanker crashed in western Iraq on Thursday, killing six US service members, the US military said, adding that the incident was “not caused by hostile or friendly fire.”
U.S. Central Command confirmed in a statement Friday morning that all members of the plane’s crew were killed.
An earlier statement said the two planes were involved in an accident over western Iraq during Operation Epic Fury, the Pentagon’s name for the war with Iran.
“One aircraft crashed in western Iraq, the second landed safely. The crash was not caused by hostile or friendly fire,” the statement said.
The Iraqi Islamic Resistance Movement, an umbrella organization for factions loyal to Iran, claimed responsibility for the downing of the plane, adding that it targeted a second KC-135, forcing it to make an emergency landing. The group provided no evidence for its claims.
In a post on X, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Echiel Leiter, said one of the planes involved landed safely in Israel.
Two images posted on Telegram by Israeli public broadcaster KAN, a CNN affiliate, showed a KC-135 aircraft with the upper part of its tail missing. Markings on the plane showed it came from Beale Air Force Base in California, where the Air Force Reserve Command’s 940th Air Refueling Wing is based.
According to CENTCOM, the incident occurred at 2pm ET on Thursday. The military will not release the identities of those involved for 24 hours after next of kin has been notified.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth addressed the crash at a press conference Friday, acknowledging that “bad things can happen” in war and calling the crew “American heroes.”
“War is hell. War is chaos. And as we saw yesterday with the tragic crash of the KC-135 tanker, bad things can happen. All of our American heroes,” Hegseth said, adding that the crew will be at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware when they return home for a dignified transfer.
The deaths of the crew bring the number of U.S. military personnel killed in connection with the war with Iran to 13.
On March 1, six U.S. Army Reserve soldiers were killed in an attack on Kuwait’s Shuaiba port. Another service member died on Saturday after being wounded in an attack in Saudi Arabia earlier this month.
Western Iraq is sparsely populated and mostly desert. Since the outbreak of the war with Iran, U.S. and Western troops in Iraq have come under fire from pro-Iranian militias, mostly by drones in northern Iraq.
The KC-135 is effectively a flying gas station, allowing the aircraft to refuel in the air to extend its range and stay in a combat zone longer.
According to the Air Force, its air crews typically consist of three to four military personnel: a pilot, co-pilot and a boom operator who refuels other aircraft in the air. Some missions also require a navigator on the crew, according to an Air Force fact sheet.
The jet can also be configured to carry cargo or medical patients.
The Air Force did not say what specific mission the fighter jets involved in Thursday’s incident were performing.
The KC-135 is some of the oldest platforms in the U.S. Air Force’s inventory, with the last units delivered in 1965, according to an Air Force fact sheet.
The four-engine plane is based on the Boeing 707 airliner, with 376 in active service as of last year, according to a U.S. Congressional report. They have received significant upgrades over the years, including new engines.
The loss of the tanker is the fourth known loss of manned aircraft in the war with Iran.
Last week, three F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets were shot down by accident over Kuwait. All six crew members escaped safely.
This article and headline have been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Mostafa Salem and Kaanita Iyer contributed to this report.
