Name: US crew dead after KC-135 plane crash in Iraq
Uploaded: 2026-03-13T16:33:02.000Z
Duration: 8 min 48 s
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CENTCOM has now just confirmed that four crew members were killed when a US Military refueling aircraft crashed in Iraq.

Rescue efforts, we're told, are ongoing to try to locate the other two crew members because of the crash under investigation.

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But the Pentagon has already said though that it was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.

That means at least 11 US troops have now been killed in the war with Iran, a conflict now entering day 14.

And all eyes remain on the Strait of Hormuz, that critical, that critical shipping channel.

Iran has stepped up attacks there on commercial ships.

New this morning, as I was just speaking about with the congressman, President Trump is telling Fox News that the US Military would escort ships through the strait if needed.

But quote, we're going to see what happens.

And he also said that the US Is going to be hitting Iran, quote, unquote, very hard over the next week.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand has new and important reporting live from Washington for us this morning.

Natasha, what are you expecting to hear from this briefing or what questions they're likely to get this morning?

Well, they're likely to get a lot of questions of course about this incident that occurred yesterday where KC135 fueling tanker crashed after colliding, it appears with another tanker which ultimately landed safely in Israel.

But there was, you know, are a lot of questions surrounding centcom's statements which they, in which they said that this was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire because an Iranian proxy group based in Iraq has now come out and taken responsibility for downing that aircraft.

Of course they did not provide evidence but these proxy groups, they do have surface to air missiles.

And so it's possible, for example, that what happened was these tankers were trying to evade a missile or perhaps this was just an incident of a mid air collision of these tankers just flying too closely together.

I mean there's so many possibilities here.

But the bottom line is that four US Servicemembers are now confirmed to be dead.

Two others, apparently the search is ongoing for them, unclear what their whereabouts and their condition is as of this moment.

I also want to address the tragic loss of our KC135 refueling aircraft yesterday.

The incident occurred over friendly territory in western Iraq while the crew was on a combat mission and again was not the result, as CENTCOM has said, was not the result of hostile or friendly fire.

We're still treating this as an active rescue and recovery operation.

As CENTCOM announced this morning, four airmen have been recovered and the Air Force and US Central Command will provide updates as Information becomes available.

Please keep these brave airmen, their families, friends and units in your thoughts in the coming hours and days.

Our service members make an incredible sacrifice to go forward and do the things that the nation asks of them them.

It's a reminder of the true cost of the dedication and commitment of the joint force.

U.S. central Command just confirmed the death of four service members in the war with Iran.

The four fallen Americans are crew members of a refueling aircraft that went down in western Iraq yesterday.

Central Command is saying that rescue efforts continue for two others on board.

They say the incident was not due to hostile or friendly fire.

Joining me now to discuss, CNN military analyst and retired U.S. air Force Colonel Cedric Layton.

Colonel Layton, I want to get your help making sense of this.

So what we know is it's a Casey 135 to four dead, two missing.

What do you make of this claim of it not being hostile, not being friendly?

Yes, so basically what was happening here, Audi, is that this was a refueling operation where one of the tankers was refue another tanker.

So there is a variant of the KC135 as we see here in this picture, that can actually take fuel from another KC135.

That aircraft, the one that was taking fuel, is apparently the one that landed safely back in Israel at Ben Gurion Airport.

The one that crashed was apparently the one that was dispensing fuel to that other KC135, the one that landed in Israel, apparently, according to reporting from planespotters, had damage to what's called its vertical stabilizer.

That's basically the tail fin that you see, that's vertical in the back of the aircraft, in the rear of the aircraft.

I want people to know that these aren't images from that plane, but

this is what it would look like, correct?

The refueling operation is a very intricate affair.

And what these refuelers do is you can see that boom coming down to the other aircraft, to the fighter that's being refueled there.

Think of it as the gas tank gets the hose from the gas pump into your gas tank.

So this is basically doing what you do for your car in the air.

And those aircraft have to maintain a constant speed and it has to be the same speed while they're conducting that refueling operation.

So this is a very complex task and it is one of those tasks that where a lot can go wrong very quickly.

And that's why the training for this is usually quite rigorous.

What are you going to be listening for in terms of this rescue effort?

So this is, you know, don't, you know, it is one of those things where we have to be very careful with what can happen next.

But these accidents are often quite tragic, and

it is, you know, unlikely, unfortunately, that the other two crew members will be found alive.

These crash scenes are terrible crash scenes.

What you will see in most of them is a wide field of debris that, you know, is very hard, if not impossible to survive.

So this is a, you know, it's a tough effort.

The crews that are conducting these recovery operations are well trained in these areas, and

they are basically conducting the same kind of investigation that you would find with the NT when there's a civilian aircraft that crashes here in the United States.

Right now, just four are confirmed dead now.

And we should be clear today the Defense Secretary will be speaking.

Colonel Layton, thank you for being with us.

And as we saw yesterday with the tragic crash of our KC135 tanker, bad things can happen.

American heroes, all of them, I ask that we remember our fallen and those participating in the recovery operations to bring home our lost KC135 crew.

That we keep those service members and their families in their thoughts and prayers.

When that knock comes on the door for people on both sides of the door confirmed deceased.

They say that this was as a part of a crash of a refueling tanker.

Six people were on board at the time of the crash in western Iraq.

They say that rescue efforts are still continuing and an investigation into what exactly happened is continuing.

At this point, they are withholding the names of those individuals for 24 hours until the next of kin have been notified.

Now, what they have said as well is that it, quote, is not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.

So at this point, it's unclear exactly what happened to this tanker.

The KC135 refueling aircraft, these kind of aircraft are key to the.

The war effort by the United States States.

And certainly we will be waiting to hear any more details from US Central Command, but

at this point, they have confirmed that four of the six crew members of this refueling tanker have been confirmed dead.

We're going to be learning more about this today.