21:21 06-04-2026

US Air Force F-35 Sent Distress Signal Over Iraq

Airman 1st Class Mason Hargrove, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Flightradar24 recorded a US Air Force F-35 sending a distress signal over Iraq near the Kuwait border amid reports of recent American aircraft losses.

According to Flightradar24, a fifth-generation F-35 Lightning II fighter operated by the US Air Force transmitted a distress signal over Iraqi airspace on April 6. Monitoring data showed that the aircraft was near the Iraq-Kuwait border at the time.

The F-35 was flying at an altitude of about nine kilometers when the emergency signal was sent. What exactly happened during the flight remains unclear. The only confirmed detail is that the signal came from the same area where a US F-15 was shot down on April 3. It was also noted that the F-35 had periodically disappeared from aircraft tracking systems.

Earlier, CNN reported that the United States had lost at least seven combat aircraft since the start of the war in Iran. According to the channel, those losses included three F-15 fighters brought down by Kuwaiti air defense systems in incidents of friendly fire, as well as a KC-135 refueling aircraft that crashed in Iraq.

The US Air Force also lost an E-3 Sentry airborne early warning aircraft, which was destroyed during an attack on a base in Saudi Arabia.