U.S. President Donald Trump says the Iranians shot down the AH-64 Apache that crashed near the Strait of Hormuz overnight and vowed to retaliate. As we noted earlier today, the crew was safely rescued by a drone boat, an unprecedented action, which you can read more about here.
“I have just been informed by our Great Military that last night the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache Helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump stated on Truth Social. “There were two pilots involved, both are safe and uninjured. Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack.”
Trump did not elaborate on how the Apache was shot down.
It’s worth noting that Iran’s small boats are known to be man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) threats and also small FPV drones and loitering munitions, which Iran also possesses, have become a real threat to helicopters.
A U.S. official told Axios an investigation “determined that an Iranian drone hit the helicopter, causing it to crash. The U.S. official said the investigation had not determined whether that was intentional.”
Trump did not say exactly how the U.S. will respond, but given past history of tensions in the region, an attack on Iranian facilities that could have been involved in the shoot-down would not be surprising. We have seen similar responses when Iran has fired at ships in the past.
Whether this will finally break the shaky ceasefire is an open question. Last week, Trump told reporters that he would consider resuming the war if Iran caused U.S. troop deaths.
“Yeah, if they killed U.S. troops, I think I would do that very quickly,” he said.
We have reached out to the White House and U.S. Central Command for additional details. CENTCOM declined comment.
UPDATE: 1:57 PM EDT –
Iranian official media has yet to explicitly confirm or deny involvement in the downing of the Apache. In a post on X addressing Trump’s claim, the Fars News Agency offered a veiled threat from Mohamed Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament.
“We prefer the language of diplomacy, but we speak other languages far more fluently,” Ghalibaf said on his own X account, repeated here by Fars. “Break your commitments, and we’ll switch to what we speak best. You ride the horse you saddled.”
IRIB just repeated CNN’s report that the helicopter gunship was taken down by a Shahed drone.
Press TV, meanwhile, took a rather cheeky approach.
“US President Donald Trump says Iran shot down ‘one of our highly sophisticated Apache helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz,'” the outlet stated on X. “So much for the Iranian military having been ‘obliterated!'”
This is a developing story.
Contact the author: howard@twz.com