Three US F-15 fighter jets shot down in 'friendly fire' in Kuwait

3 min read Original article ↗

Josh Milton

Published March 2, 2026 11:12am Updated March 2, 2026 2:02pm

Three American F-15s have been shot down by mistake in Kuwait, the US Central Command has said.

The fighter jets were gunned down by Kuwaiti air defences at around 4am GMT during active combat with Iranian aircraft.

Unverified footage appears to show a twin-engine fighter jet, spiralling to Earth as smoke billowed from its back end.

Another clip appeared to show the pilot falling in a parachute after ejecting on the outskirts of Al Jahra, west of Kuwait City, according to CNN Arabic.

None of the six crew members in the three jets has been injured. Footage shows one on the ground near a parachute, another shows a pilot in the boot of a black vehicle.

US F-15 fighter jet crashes in Kuwait

The social media videos showed the plane crashing

A person was seen parachuting down

An F15 jet lands at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk this morning. March 2, 2026. // Kuwaiti Ministry of Defence says several US jets crashed in Kuwait, with the pilots ejecting, during a period of intense Iranian fire targeting the country. Whilst in Cyprus, a British RAF base was targeted by a "suspected drone strike". Photo released 02/03/2026

An F15 is a fighter-jet capable at travelling some 2,000mph (Picture: James Linsell Clark/SWNS)

US officials confirmed the downed planes were F-15E Strike Eagles, an 1989 model of the F-15 which can reach speeds just shy of 2,000mph.

Kuwait defence officials confirmed the incident in a statement reported by the official state Kuwait News Agency, but did not specify the cause.

The US, Israel and Iran have today entered a third day of deadly attacks.

Further US-Israeli strikes yesterday that struck a girls’ school near a naval base in Minab, killing 175 people, mostly children.

A woman walks by the damaged Gandhi Hospital, which was hit when a strike struck a state TV communications tower and nearby buildings across the street during the ongoing joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Gandhi Hospital in Tehran, which was hit when a strike struck a state TV communications tower and nearby buildings (Picture: AP)

Video showed half of the Shajarah Tayyebeh school reduced to rubble.

The strikes set off retaliatory attacks by Iran, with one killing US soldiers at a base in Kuwait.

US President Donald Trump, who has been threatening Iran for weeks, said: ‘Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends.

‘That’s the way it is. Likely be more.’

On Sunday, US-Israeli strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader of almost 37 years, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, creating a tense power vacuum.

Israeli airstrikes this morning killed 31 people in Lebanon in response to earlier rocket fire by Hezbollah, an Iran-backed group.

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