U.S. President Donald Trump greets U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in Washington, D.C., September 11, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
On Tuesday, a decorated Army general declared that the story of a shot-down pilot’s rescue during the war with Iran “could not be true.” The general’s statement came in response to an installment from the latest episode of 60 Minutes, decried by some analysts as "propaganda," which featured Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and a rescued airman relating a tale that retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey found literally unbelievable.
The 60 Minutes segment focused on an American F-15 pilot who crashed in Iran shortly after President Donald Trump launched the war nearly seven months ago. After the episode aired, McCaffrey — recipient of three Purple Hearts — took to social media to express his thoughts, posting, “Very strange story. Could not be true. US Army stops parachute ops with wind speed of 15mph. I’ve jumped with higher wind speeds, and it feels like a train wreck. 100 mph sounds like all bones in body broken and limbs torn off.” This came in response to a post that ran down the details of the 60 Minutes piece, explaining, “So the story is that a guy with codename dude bravo survived a free fall to the ground in Iran after his F-15 was shot hitting the ground at speeds of close to 100 mph. He then ran 20 miles and found a cliff that was 7000 feet high and climbed that cliff and was extracted in a two day period.”
As the Daily Beast elaborates, “In the segment, the airman, identified during the broadcast by the call sign ‘Bravo’ to protect his identity, said his parachute was damaged after the plane was badly hit. He said that during the freefall he did everything he could to ‘unfurl or pull pieces of the parachute loose,’ but to no avail. ‘It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen,’ he said. He also said that during the fall, he broke several bones — including in his back, one arm, and shoulder — sprained his ankle, and suffered bloody scrapes on his body. After ejecting from the F-15, he said he managed to avoid being caught by Iranian forces as he hiked up 7,000 feet, while hardly equipped with anything. He was rescued 50 hours after the crash. The aircraft’s pilot was rescued shortly after the crash.”
The Beast also notes that “while ‘Bravo’ agreed to be interviewed on camera, his counterpart ‘Alpha’ did not — much to the dismay of Hegseth, who had been pushing for both of them to be interviewed on camera. Hegseth was also interviewed in the segment, along with several political appointees. CNN reported that the DOD was adamant that the airmen speak on the show, despite the airmen’s concerns about inadvertently revealing classified information about the rescue effort.”
