All six US crew dead after refuelling aircraft crashes in Iraq

Iran-backed forces claimed responsibility while the US said the plane was not brought down by enemy or friendly fire.

LAST UPDATE | 13 Mar

ALL SIX CREW members died when an American refuelling aircraft crashed in western Iraq yesterday, the US military has confirmed.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) has said the “circumstances of the incident are under investigation”.

“All six crew members aboard a US KC-135 refueling aircraft that went down in western Iraq are now confirmed deceased,” CENTCOM, which is responsible for US forces in the Middle East, said in a post on X.

Iran’s military said in an earlier statement carried by state TV that an allied group in Iraq had downed the aircraft with a missile, killing all its crew, but the US military denied that was the case, saying the loss of the plane “was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire”.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which is a loose alliance of Iran-backed Iraqi factions, claimed to have downed a KC-135. They also said they had targeted another plane that escaped.

A second plane involved in the incident, which the US military said occurred at 7pm Irish time yesterday, landed safely.

The deaths bring the number of US service members killed in the ongoing conflict with Iran to at least 13. More than 100 have been wounded.

Since the start of the Middle East war, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq has been claiming daily attacks on US interests in Iraq and across the region, but it rarely names its targets.

The KC-135 is at least the fourth US military aircraft lost during the war, after three F-15s were shot down by friendly fire over Kuwait, according to the US military. That incident occurred during combat including “attacks from Iranian aircraft, ballistic missiles, and drones,” the military command said at the time.

KC-135s, which have been in operation for more than 60 years, generally have a crew of three – a pilot, a copilot and a third who operates the boom used to refuel other aircraft, according to the US Air Force.

But some KC-135 missions require a navigator, and the aircraft can carry up to 37 passengers, an Air Force factsheet said.

With reporting from David Mac Redmond