How U.S. forces conduct search and rescue for a downed combat crew

• https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-u-s-forces-conduct-search-and-rescue-for-a-downed-combat-crew
• Email
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest
• Tumblr

For insight into what it takes to conduct a search and rescue operation for a downed combat air crew, Amna Nawaz spoke with retired Master Sergeant Wes Bryant. He spent his career in the Air Force Special Operations and participated in these kinds of missions.

Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

Amna Nawaz:

For insight on what it takes to conduct a search-and-rescue operation for a downed combat aircrew, we turn to retired Master Sergeant Wes Bryant. He spent his career in Air Force special operations and participated in these kinds of missions.

Welcome back to the "News Hour," Wes.

Can you just tell us, based on what we know at this hour, walk us through what would be happening right now in a search-and-rescue mission. What are they trying to do to locate and rescue this second crew member?

Master Sgt. Wes Bryant (Ret.), U.S. Air Force: Well, it's twofold here.

Obviously, it's using -- prioritizing all assets available. That's not just all air assets, but all intelligence assets, and anything we have potentially on the ground, Iranian sources, for example, people that are pro-U.S. causes here, to locate this downed F-15 aircrew member.

And then, secondarily, it's ensuring that we have protection of air assets that are going to push into Iran. What we have seen here is clearly the collapse of what we call air superiority.

The Trump administration, Hegseth himself, military leadership has almost, kind of in a propaganda-like manner -- not almost, but in a propaganda-like manner, told the world and the American people how much we have won in Iran, we have established dominance, we have established air superiority, there's no air defenses, there's no air force.

That's never the case in any combat environment. And as we can see here, Iran still has sophisticated air defense capabilities. They have to be sophisticated in order to bring down something like an F-15. So that's twofold.

Amna Nawaz:

Yes.

Master Sgt. Wes Bryant (Ret.):

That's securing the pilot's location on the ground, and then ensuring that the assets that are going to be sent in to get that aircrew member will be safe when they get sent in. And that's a difficult task at this point...

Amna Nawaz:

Let me ask you...

Master Sgt. Wes Bryant (Ret.):

... because things are -- as we have been told...

Amna Nawaz:

Let me ask you, if I may, about the specifics in this case with this war in Iran, because there are examples of rescue missions for U.S. service members behind enemy lines in other nations, right, Afghanistan more recently, earlier than that, Vietnam, Korea. Of course, everyone remembers the infamous Black Hawk Down mission in Somalia in the early '90s.

What are the challenges here that are different from those previous episodes?

Master Sgt. Wes Bryant (Ret.):

Well, we have really no ground forces to speak of, no partner force of any substantial nature that can push in and what we say cordon and secure an area.

In many of those cases, we had at least some kind of aligned partner forces that could help in these situations. And then, of course, there's this -- there's a shock factor for the U.S. military, frankly, where we don't have the superiority from an air platform standpoint that we apparently believed we did.

So now getting forces in, getting those ground components in, which are going to be a lot more at risk in low-flying helicopters, those can be shot down with rocket-propelled grenades, for example, even rifles at times. So you don't need sophisticated air defense assets to shoot these troop carriers down.

So getting those forces in is going to be far more risk and far more difficult to plan here.

Amna Nawaz:

We see the Iranians, of course, offering a reward for the capture of this U.S. airmen. If that ends up happening, if the service member ends up in the custody of Iranians or in the Iranian regime, what would that change? What does that mean for the landscape moving forward?

Master Sgt. Wes Bryant (Ret.):

Well, the Trump administration here, Hegseth himself, really our senior military leadership, have presented it really an utter failure to foresee the implications of this war. I mean, it's an illegal war.

They have not foreseen the impact to regional partners here, the global instability, the regional instability, the energy crisis itself. That's one problem of many, and then, most importantly, the incredible risk, the undue risk to U.S. forces here.

And so I would hope that Iran wants to keep this aircrew member safe, for sake of ethics and morality and adhering to Geneva Conventions. My guess would be that they want the leverage. And that will be incredible leverage, because the U.S., for better or for worse, we have a very low tolerance for U.S. casualties, and especially for U.S. prisoners of war in the hands of a regime like the Iranian regime.

That's going to be a whole lot of leverage against the Trump administration, unfortunately. And the most important part here is that we get our airman back safe and sound.

Amna Nawaz:

In the minute or so I have left, you mentioned how this is a bit of a revelation in terms of what it shows us about Iran's existing capabilities. They were able to shoot down an F-15. It looks like also that A-10 Warthog. They shot at a Black Hawk helicopter that was able to return safely to base.

Does all of this and could all of this change the U.S. war effort moving forward, how operations are planned and carried out?

Master Sgt. Wes Bryant (Ret.):

You know, I certainly hope so. It absolutely should. There should be a pause to operations.

Typically, with downed aircraft, down crew members, there will be a pause sometimes theater-wide, and all assets, all priorities are put to that recovery effort. But there should also be a pause and a reassessment of what we call risk to the force, to U.S. forces versus risk to the mission.

Continue -- we have -- the U.S. has bombed so many targets in the last few weeks. Making the decision to just continue forward and continue a strike campaign with a risk that we haven't properly assessed yet to our own forces would be, frankly, just incredibly irresponsible at this point.

So I hope there is a halt and a reassessment strategically and operationally here.

Amna Nawaz:

That is Retired Master Sergeant Wes Bryant joining us tonight.

Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

Master Sgt. Wes Bryant (Ret.):

Thank you.