In April, two U.S. Air Force officers were shot down over Iran and found themselves hunted in a mountainous desert south of Isfahan — a situation that demanded both extraordinary institutional courage and quiet individual endurance. Newly declassified footage, obtained by 60 Minutes, now brings rare visibility to the two separate rescue operations that followed, unfolding across two days in hostile territory. The videos remind us that behind every military capability statistic lives a more elemental story: people making irreversible decisions under pressure, and other people climbing mountains
Declassified videos reveal dramatic rescue of two downed Air Force officers in Iran
One officer suffered a broken back and other injuries from a damaged parachute during ejection; both officers faced active pursuit by Iranian forces with bounties on their heads.