A second American crew member shot down over Iran was rescued on Easter Sunday after the CIA ran a deception campaign to misdirect Iranian forces, former intelligence officer Mike Baker told Newsmax, capping a 36-hour ordeal that tested the full reach of U.S. military and intelligence capabilities.
The weapons systems officer aboard an F-15E Strike Eagle had been hiding injured in a mountain crevice at roughly 7,000 feet, evading Iranian search teams for more than a day before a specialized commando unit extracted him under fire. Both crew members from the downed jet are now accounted for. No U.S. personnel were killed or wounded in the operation.
Baker, a former CIA officer, told Newsmax's "Sunday Report" that the agency had been embedded in the broader conflict from the beginning. He credited the interplay between intelligence assets and military operators for the outcome.
"As far as the CIA's role in this goes, they've been involved in this conflict front and center since the start in terms of provision of intelligence, working with our liaison partners to try to improve intelligence gathering on Iran, which has always been a bit of a heavy lift."
That heavy lift, in this case, included planting false information inside Iran's own intelligence channels. AP News reported the CIA spread word inside the Islamic Republic that the missing crew member had already been located and was being moved by ground, buying critical time for American operators to pinpoint his real position in the mountains.
The sequence began Friday, when Iran downed the F-15E Strike Eagle, the first coalition aircraft lost after some 13,000 sorties into the campaign. One crew member was rescued almost immediately. The second, a weapons systems officer, was not.
For more than 36 hours, that officer survived alone behind enemy lines. He climbed to high elevation, found a crevice in the rock, and waited. At some point he keyed his radio and transmitted three words: "God is good." The New York Post reported that the unusual message initially alarmed U.S. officials, who feared Iranian forces might be using the frequency to lure American rescuers into a trap.
The concern was understandable. Iran had put a bounty on downed American pilots, and the regime's forces were actively hunting for the missing airman. Every hour that passed raised the odds of capture, or worse.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe later described the urgency in blunt terms. "This was also a race against the clock, as it was critical that we locate the downed aviator as quickly as possible, while at the same time keeping our enemies misdirected," Ratcliffe said, as quoted in the New York Post's account.
The earlier shootdown of the F-15E and rescue of the first crew member had already put Iranian forces on high alert, making the second extraction far more dangerous.
By Saturday morning, U.S. officials said the CIA had confirmed the stranded officer's location. The Washington Examiner reported that the agency leaked false intelligence suggesting a maritime exfiltration was underway, drawing Iranian forces toward the coast and away from the mountains where the airman was actually hiding.
With presidential authorization, a specialized commando unit launched the recovery mission. About 100 special operations troops took part, including members of SEAL Team 6. President Trump said the effort involved dozens of U.S. aircraft "armed with the most lethal weapons in the World."
The operation did not go smoothly. AP News reported that Black Hawk helicopters came under fire during the approach. Two transport planes malfunctioned and had to be destroyed on the ground rather than left for Iranian forces to exploit. But the commandos reached the crevice, recovered the injured officer, and got him out.
The rescued airman was injured but expected to recover. The Washington Times reported that both crew members of the downed F-15 Strike Eagle have now been found, and no American personnel were killed or wounded in either rescue.
An official told Fox News's Trey Yingst that the pace was relentless: "Within eight hours, we had planes in motion. Within almost 12 hours, we were on the ground in Iran."
The full tactical picture of how the commandos pulled off the extraction reveals just how many things had to go right, and how many nearly didn't.
Baker emphasized that the success was not luck alone. He pointed to years of training and preparation that made the rescue possible even under chaotic conditions.
"They practice this constantly. They go through escape and evasion on a regular basis... This is not something where it just happens and the pieces have to fall together. The search and rescue teams, this is what they do."
He added: "You always have to hope for an element of luck, and we got it in this case. But you just can't say this often enough. You can't understate the professionalism of the people involved in this."
Baker declined to discuss specifics of CIA methods. "It doesn't do us any good to talk about sources and methods or operational methodologies," he said.
The airman's survival behind enemy lines is itself a testament to the escape-and-evasion training Baker referenced, the kind of preparation that rarely makes headlines until someone's life depends on it.
Former FBI agent Jonathan Gilliam, also appearing on Newsmax, struck a broader note about interagency coordination under the current administration.
"Never giving up and understanding how well all of these forces are working together. This is a different military, it's a different CIA, it's a different FBI. The way that our military and all of these agencies are working together... the way that everything is running so smoothly, and it comes down to the command and control, it's amazing."
Gilliam credited President Trump with setting the pace. "He's in complete control. We are in control of the speed and veracity at which this fight occurs," he said.
National Review's Noah Rothman framed the Easter rescue as a turning point: "On Easter morning, U.S. forces rescued a downed pilot from the middle of Iranian territory, advancing America's tactical and strategic position."
The strategic backdrop matters. Iran had invested heavily in a layered air-defense network supplied in part by Russian and Chinese radars and surface-to-air missile systems. Yet after 13,000 coalition sorties, the regime managed to down only one aircraft. The rescue of both crew members from that single loss effectively denied Tehran the propaganda victory it sought.
Trump posted on Truth Social: "This is the first time in military memory that two U.S. Pilots have been rescued, separately, deep in Enemy Territory."
The broader U.S.-Iran confrontation continues to evolve, with diplomatic efforts running in parallel to the military campaign.
Gilliam described the current U.S. posture in stark terms. "This is a true strike group on a scale we haven't seen in a long time," he said, adding that as Iranian infrastructure degrades, "the morale of the Iranian military and people will start to diminish."
Several details remain classified or unconfirmed. The name and rank of the rescued weapons systems officer have not been publicly released. The exact location of the rescue within Iran has not been disclosed. No Pentagon or White House statement included in available reporting provides a full operational timeline.
Baker's and Gilliam's accounts are those of former officials offering informed commentary, not current operational briefings. The CIA's deception campaign has been described by multiple outlets citing U.S. officials, but the full scope of the agency's involvement remains shielded behind classification.
What is clear is the outcome: an injured American airman, alone in hostile terrain for a day and a half, was brought home alive on Easter morning by operators who trained for exactly this moment.
When the military, the CIA, and special operations forces are pointed in the same direction with clear authority from the top, this is what American power looks like. The people who pulled it off deserve more than a headline. They deserve a country that remembers what competence in the service of its own citizens actually costs, and what it's worth.
