What Happened to the Iranian Aircrews? The Mystery Stirring Tehran and Qatar

A deepening mystery surrounds the fate of three Iranian fighter aircrew members who have been missing since two Iranian Air Force Su-24 aircraft were shot down over Qatar on March 2. For months, Tehran acknowledged that it did not know what had happened to them. Now, however, it is presenting an entirely different account: It says the three survived the shootdown and have been held captive in Qatar for about six months. Doha strongly rejects the claim, saying that only the remains of one pilot were found after the crash.

The new allegation was raised by Mohammad Bagherzadeh, who heads the missing-persons committee at the General Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces. According to him, the three missing men are Javad Salehi, Abdulmajid Dashtian, and Omran Bahrevashian. The fourth crew member, Majid Kazemi, was definitively killed: His remains were identified through DNA testing, returned to Iran, and he was buried at the end of July.

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said that after the aircraft were shot down, local forces conducted searches at the crash site, during which the remains of the deceased pilot were found. Qatar then worked with Iran to coordinate their transfer. According to the Qataris, Tehran was even invited to send its own representatives to observe the search operations, but the Iranians declined. In response to the new accusations, Doha expressed surprise and rejected the claim that the pilots are being held in the country.

Iran, meanwhile, is now trying to bring the matter to the international arena. According to a claim published in Tehran over the weekend, it appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross, demanding that it intervene and work to secure the release of the three aircrew members.

The incident that sparked the mystery took place during the war between Iran, the United States, and Israel. Two Iranian Su-24 aircraft departed from the Erbil area in Iraq, entered Qatari airspace, and headed toward Al Udeid Air Base, home to CENTCOM’s forward headquarters and a significant U.S. presence. According to reports, the aircraft were also intended to strike the Ras Laffan area.

Sources cited by CNN said the two aircraft were flying extremely low, just about 24 meters (79 feet) above the ground and sea, in an attempt to approach their targets. According to those reports, they were about two minutes from their targets when they were detected by Qatar’s air-defense system. Qatari Air Force F-15QA jets were scrambled and shot them down. Doha officially confirmed the shootdown.

That is where the question that has followed the case ever since emerged: Did the three missing crew members manage to eject from the aircraft and survive? Technically, ejecting at the altitude at which the aircraft were flying was not impossible. The Su-24 has an ejection-seat system that allows emergency ejection even at zero altitude, so flying at roughly 24 meters, or 79 feet, does not in itself prove that all the crew members were killed in the crash.

Still, the conditions of the shootdown may have made survival extremely difficult. If the aircraft were indeed flying exceptionally low and at high speed, and perhaps were already in the midst of a maneuver ahead of the attack, the window of time available to the pilots for ejection would have been tiny. Adding to that is the age of the Su-24s: decades-old aircraft that, as far as is known, were not equipped with modern ejection seats.

At this point, there is no public proof that the three aircrew members are alive, but there is also no proof that establishes beyond doubt that they were killed. The identification of one of the four crew members as dead, alongside the uncertainty surrounding the other three, is what leaves the mystery unresolved.