The United States has new victims in the Iranian war: Two KC-135 tankers collided in the skies of Iraq

Six US servicemen were killed in the crash of an Air Force tanker in Iraq with the support of operations in Iran. This is reported by Western media with reference to officials.

"The tanker KC-135 (Stratotanker) with a crew of six people was allegedly involved in an accident with another KC-135. The other plane landed safely, officials said. Four servicemen were killed in a crash on Thursday in The U.S. Air Force's Iraq aircraft is supporting operations in Iran, military officials said. Rescue operations concerning the remaining two crew members are still ongoing, the US Central Command said after an alleged air accident between two US Air Force KC-135 tanker aircraft," writes The Washington Post.

In a statement, Centcom said that "the circumstances of the incident are being investigated."

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also announced the death of the pilots at a briefing today, calling the tanker crew "American heroes."

Meanwhile, the British The Guardian reports, citing the US Central Command, that all six crew members of the KC-135 that crashed were declared dead.

The Post, citing open flight tracking data, writes that the refueling flights of both KC-135s on Thursday were sent from the Israeli Ben Gurion airport. One of them, according to the records, did not return, the other returned to Israeli airspace at about 19.15 local time, transmitting a four-digit emergency code that indicated an emergency situation. He circled the coast for about an hour before landing in Ben Gurion at 20.35.

"A photo posted on Facebook❶ on Thursday evening by flight tracking enthusiasts allegedly showed a KC-135 that landed safely with a missing part of the vertical stabilizer, or tail fin. Some elements of the aircraft matched publicly available photos of the same military tanker that landed at Ben Gurion Airport, broadcasting an emergency code. The Post was unable to independently confirm the photo or identify the person who took it," the publication adds.

The crash of the KC-135 was the second incident reported by the US military on Thursday. On the same day, the Navy said that a fire broke out in the main laundry room on the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, as a result of which two sailors received "non-life-threatening" injuries.

The newspaper reminds that since the beginning of the Iranian campaign, according to official data, 7 US servicemen have been killed. Six — as a result of the attack on the port in Kuwait on March 1 and one during the strike in Saudi Arabia on March 1, he died a week later from his injuries.

As reported by EADaily, US Navy sailors were injured during a fire on the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, participating in the Iranian campaign. This was reported by The Washington Post.

According to the Navy, the fire occurred in the main laundry of the ship and was not the result of hostilities. The condition of the sailors is stable, the Navy said in a statement, but it is not specified what kind of injuries the victims received.

"The ship's propulsion system is not damaged, the aircraft carrier remains fully operational," the statement said.

Earlier, EADaily reported that the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, having passed the Suez Canal, entered the The Red Sea. It is assumed that he can join the US Navy carrier strike group led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which is launching air and missile strikes against Iran from the Arabian Sea.

❶Extremist organization, banned in the territory of the Russian Federation