The spokesperson for the Central Headquarters of Iran's Hatam al-Anbia Armed Forces stated that a US military refueling aircraft was hit by an air defense system and crashed in western Iraq, with all personnel on board killed.
According to the Associated Press, there were at least 5 crew members on the US military refueling plane that crashed in Iraq.
Earlier, the US Central Command released a message on social media saying that a KC-135 aerial refueling plane crashed in western Iraq and rescue operations were still underway. The incident involved two aircraft, with one crashing in western Iraq and the other landing safely.
US Central Command pointed out that the occurrence of this event was not caused by enemy fire or friendly fire.
The KC-135 aerial refueling plane is at least the fourth US military aircraft lost in the Middle East war. Previously, three F-15 fighter jets were shot down by friendly fire over Kuwait.