Earlier today, Iran claimed they had forced down a U.S. jet that had flown into their airspace. They’ve now said that, well, no they didn’t after all. Read about it below.

Falcon 50 Aircraft

Falcon 50 Aircraft

The Iranians got a little carried away with bragging that they had brought down a U.S. Falcon aircraft that had flown into their airspace. The initial account was that the U.S. jet had flown low in order to avoid radar detection and into their airspace. They reported that they had brought down the jet and detained the civilians and military personnel who were in the plane.

The initial report on Fars (Iranian news agency) reported that the U.S. Falcon jet crossed into their airspace from Turkey ‘in spite of repeated warnings’.

Well, the U.S. government said, ‘No you didn’t’. Then Ahmadinejad’s government tried to save face from their attempt to tell the Iranian people they had brought down an American jet and said that they did but started backtracking and editing their story.

The Pentagon came out saying that there were no American military jets missing and the Iran report must be mistaken. :rolleyes:

Finally, after some silly back and forth, the Iranians admitted that it wasn’t a military jet after all and, gee whiz, guess it wasn’t American either. It was a Hungarian aircraft carrying humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. Apparently, the jet unintentionally crossed over into Iranian airspace enroute, was brought down by the Iranian Air Force, questioned and released. Also, apparently this all happened on September 30th.

This report was erroneous and was apparently a blatant propaganda ploy. Still, it underlines the fact that Iran views the U.S. as an enemy and continues to make attempts to show themselves as having superior military capabilities to the Americans.