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Comment by rhcom2 | Hacker News Reader

One crew member rescued, other is still MIA and being actively searched for https://www.axios.com/2026/04/03/iran-us-fighter-shot-down

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Non-walled article reporting the rescue:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-fighter-jet-f15e-downe...

And CENTCOM's lying about it.

https://x.com/CENTCOM/status/2039805134704660622

That tweet is from yesterday.

Iran tweets about taking down an American jet basically daily. By their count we are down 40 f-35s, 4 aircraft carriers and thousands of MQ-9s.

> That tweet is from yesterday.

That's when the shootdown happened, yes.

> Iran tweets about taking down an American jet basically daily.

Sure. We have two sets of demonstrable liars here. See, for example, the E-3 Sentry that got blown up; it took leaked photos for that to be admitted.

And don't get me started on the several times in the last few months we've "obliterated" Iran's nuclear capacity and missiles and whatnot only to be told it's time to do it again.

The claim being addressed is a shootdown over Qeshm island, which is the biggest island just west of the strait of Hormuz. The current CSAR operations are happening somewhere in the Khuzestan province. Probably somewhere within the 150 km radius of [1] based on online footage of the C-130 flying over.

[1] 31.941606, 50.311765

And they have not edited it or taken it down... why?

Because almost all of the people inside Iran have been disconnected for the past 35 days [1]. And believe it or not, they are texting these news live to all mobile phones on a daily basis as well. Some regime supporters believe it, because the want to believe it, they need to believe it. Just in the past 24 hours I have received 5 different messages from different organizations claiming victory and damage to US / Israel assets.

Just for a quick laugh, look at the official (Iranian) president's letter to the American people published yesterday [2]. The font changes between the paragraphs!

[1] https://mastodon.social/@netblocks/116339631989805542

[2] https://x.com/drpezeshkian/status/2039418009052119190?s=20

It’s so bizarre, they’re using “fancy” formatting with em dashes but there are extra full stops inserted randomly throughout.

"We"

Very cool that you have a side hustle as a US fighter jet pilot!

It's known as the Air National Guard. Work for United during the week, and fly F16's one weekend a month.

Hate to say it and sound so "conspiracy-like", but I no longer can trust what the current US administration is saying. Ever since the path of a hurricane was redrawn with a sharpie, it's been... unusual.

Your comment is a perfect setup for the cynicism olympics where people rush to say you could never trust the govt.

Has there been a time where (after later facts came out) they were wrong?

Nukes in Iraq?

That was what the gov’t was saying was true - which was a lie, and was later proven to be a lie.

Which reinforces my point?

Or the bootlicker olympics for those who want everyone else to ignore the constant lies because they think bigger, more powerful government is utopian.

Do you have some reasons for hope for the cynics in the crowd?

Not really. Just that trust ain't binary and the govt is made of people. I don't like this admin but this too shall pass. Cultivate your garden. Electing bad people has consequences.

None of what's happening today could have happened without everything that came before it.

The blue team carries plenty of blame for not fielding better candidates. If nobody is buying your bullshit, it's a little weak to blame the customer.

And all of the us electorate carries plenty of blame for letting our government get so massive and out of control over time. We've let this beast metastasize and grow, and now were stuck with it.

The American people are ultimately to blame for it, they've got the government they deserve, which is actively dismantling the US empire day by day. The American people voted for Trump instead of Kamala, and that is rather damning of the state of the American people, far more so than however damning it may also be for the Democratic party.

Red team could have sane candidate, but they did not. They spent a lot of money amd effort into making this happen.

They are 100% at fault.

Yes. Absolutely.

As we all know, in this day and age, you need to REALLY sell your story, and have the media behind you. Competence is tertiary.

> Approval of Trump among Republicans has slipped to a second-term low of 84%, down from 92% last March. At the same time, an all-time high 16% of Republicans disapprove. This shift can be attributed, at least in part, to declining support among non-MAGA Republicans, as approval dropped 11 points in the last year among this group (70% in March 2025 to 59% today). Virtually all MAGA Republicans continue to approve of Trump, with 98% approving a year ago and 97% now.

> https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-news-poll-voters-oppose...

March 20th poll

Regardless of whether it's a "perfect setup" or not, the facts speak for themselves.

Most competent governments don't say things that are outright wrong. They may use double speak, or not comment on a topic. But this government (and unfortunately it's this specific adminstration/president) has acted time and again in a way that both of us know very well.

You should never trust this administration. The US government in general has a spotty history, but this administration does nothing trustworthy.

I think the problem is that in previous administrations at least they had some skill in lying in ways that were not so constantly contradicting one another.

That has been (rightly) said every year there has been a current US administration.

It is not a conspiracy theory if it's true.

And no, it's not "cynicism Olympics", it's observation.

Right on cue!

I wouldn't be so pleased with myself over such "You will get wet in a rainstorm." style predictions.

truths from different angles that are at odds with one another produce mistrust and thoughts of conspiracy. We have more of that now than we have ever had, ever. It doesn't take Nostradamus to point to the trend.

tl;dr : Gee, where did this mistrust in the current government come from? I'd point but I don't have that many hands.

The US military is in the middle of a top-level political purge; both honesty and competence as an institution will be below normal levels for the forseeable future, and honesty about sensitive operations during wartime is never much even as a baseline.

All true. So we should expect it, but we still shouldn't normalize it.

What’s the buzz like amongst military right now? Is moral low? High?

It’s been fascinating to see my Father (Marine and Army veteran) and my brother (soon be a commissioned Air Force officer) who usually are very aligned politically start develop the first rift I’ve ever seen regarding this war.

No, that tweet is from 20 hours ago, and is about a separate incident which happened two days ago over Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz.

The current F-15 crash incident happened today near the city of Lali, in Iran’s Khuzestan Province.

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