Aspokesman of the Iranian Armed Forces has confirmed the shooting down of two Israeli F-35 fifth generation fighter aircraft during clashes on June 13, with state media subsequently reporting the capture of one female pilot who landed on Iranian soil after ejecting.

Although the veracity of these claims remains in question, an assessment of the circumstances of the F-35’s operations, and the capabilities of Iranian air defences, provides context which is invaluable to evaluating the likelihood that such shootdowns were achieved.

The F-35 is the only modern fighter currently in the Israeli Air Force’s fleet, with none of the service’s F-15s or F-16s having been produced at or modernised to a ‘4+ generation’ standard, while all continue to rely on mechanically scanned array radars considered effectively obsolete for high intensity engagements.

Confirmation that Israeli attacks on Iranian targets used not only air-launched missiles, which can be fired from F-15s and F-16s far beyond Iranian airspace with little risk to the aircraft, but also gravity bombs which these older fighters would struggle to brave Iranian airspace to drop, makes it highly likely that Israeli F-35s flew deep into Iranian airspace to attack their targets. Such operations are unprecedented, with prior Israeli attacks on Iran having consistently been launched from far outside the country’s airspace. 

Although the F-35 retains advanced stealth capabilities, and Iranian air defences have shown signs of considerable limitations in the past, the sheer scale of Iran’s arsenal of air defence assets, the sophisticated capabilities of many of its systems, and the size of its fighter fleet, make it highly possible that F-35s were shot down.

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