Six US crew killed as KC-135 Stratotanker crashes during Iran war mission in Iraq

All six crew members of a KC135 refuelling aircraft that crashed while supporting operations against Iran are dead the US military said FridayUS Central Command which oversees the Middle East said the crash in western Iraq on Thursday followed an unspecified incident involving two aircraft in friendly airspace and that the other plane landed safelyThe crash brings the US death toll in Operation Epic Fury to at least 13 service members with the seven others killed in combatAbout 140 US service members have been injured including eight severely the Pentagon said earlier this weekThe KC135 has been in service for more than 60 years and has been involved in several fatal accidents most recently in 2013Heres what is known so far about the tanker which is the fourth US military aircraft publicly acknowledged to have crashed since the war against Iran began on February 28Cause of crash not immediately knownUS Central Command said the circumstances of the crash are under investigation but that the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile or friendly fireA US official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the developing situation said the other plane involved was also a KC135 Yechiel Leiter the Israeli ambassador to the US wrote on X that the other plane landed safely in IsraelGen Dan Caine the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday morning that the crash occurred over friendly territory in western Iraq while the crew was on a combat mission and reiterated that hostile or friendly fire was not the causeSpeaking at the same news conference Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the crew heroesWar is hell War is chaos Hegseth said And as we saw yesterday with the tragic crash of our KC135 tanker bad things can happen American heroes all of themHegseth and Caine spoke to reporters before the deaths of the six crew member had been made publicYang Uk a security expert at South Koreas Asan Institute for Policy Studies said it would be rare for a refuelling tanker to be downed by enemy fire because such operations are usually conducted in the rear of combat zonesLast week three US F15E fighter jets were mistakenly downed by friendly Kuwaiti fire All six crew members ejected safelyThe KC135 is a longserving tanker planeThe KC135 Stratotanker is a US Air Force aircraft used to refuel other planes in midair allowing them to travel longer distances and maintain operations longer without landingThe plane is also used to transport wounded personnel during medical evacuations or conduct surveillance missions according to military expertsBased on the same design as the Boeing 707 passenger plane the tanker has been in service for more than 60 years supporting the US Air Force Navy and Marine Corps as well as allied aircraft according to an Air Force descriptionThe aging plane is set to be gradually phased out as more of the nextgeneration KC46A Pegasus tankers enter serviceDespite upgrades over the years the age of the KC135s has raised concerns about their reliability and durabilityThe last of these planes were produced in the 1960s Yang said He added that the transition to the KC46A has progressed more slowly than expectedAccording to the Congressional Research Service the Air Force last year had 376 KC135s including 151 on active duty 163 in the Air National Guard and 62 in the Air Force ReserveA basic KC135 crew consists of three people a pilot copilot and boom operator Nurses and medical technicians are added in aeromedical evacuation missionsRefuelling typically happens at the back of the plane where the boom operator is located A fuel boom is lowered to connect with fighters bombers or other aircraft On many of the planes the boom operator works lying face down while looking out of a window on the underside of the planeSome KC135s can also refuel planes from pods on their wings The tankers have room to carry cargo or passengers if neededRefuelling tankers could play an increasingly important role if the Iran war drags on as US aircraft may need to fly longer missions to pursue Iranian forces retreating deeper into the country said YangPast accidentsKC135s have previously been involved in several fatal accidents The most recent occurred on May 3 2013 when a KC135R crashed after takeoff south of Chaldovar Kyrgyzstan while supporting the war in AfghanistanIn that crash the crew experienced problems with the planes rudder according to a US Air Force investigationWhile the crew struggled to stabilise the plane the tail section broke away and the plane exploded midair killing all three onboardThe most serious midair collision involving the plane happened in 1966 when a B52 bomber carrying nuclear bombs struck a tanker near Palomares SpainThe accident caused the tanker to crash killing four onboard The disaster led to an extensive decontamination effort to clean up nuclear material dispersed when conventional explosives in the hydrogen bombs detonated after hitting the groundThis 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