Two U.S. Army soldiers were rescued by an unmanned surface drone after their AH-64 Apache helicopter crashed into the sea near the Strait of Hormuz, in what the military described as the first water rescue ever carried out using drone technology. The crew went down on Monday while patrolling waters off the coast of Oman, the U.S. Central Command said Tuesday, and both were recovered about two hours later in stable condition.
The rescue was conducted by Task Force 59, the U.S. Fifth Fleet's drone and artificial-intelligence unit based in Bahrain, which directed an autonomous surface vessel to the downed aviators. The soldiers were pulled from the water at roughly 7:30 p.m. Eastern, within approximately two hours of the crash, officials told CBS News. Neither was hurt.
Central Command confirmed the incident on the social platform X on Tuesday but released few details, saying only that the personnel had been "rescued by American forces" and that "the cause of the incident is under investigation." The command did not say what brought the aircraft down.
President Donald Trump addressed the crash on Monday evening after attending Game 3 of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden, telling reporters the aviators were fine. "Nobody injured," he said, adding that the pilots were doing well.
Apache gunships have been a central asset in the American naval campaign against Iran, helping enforce a blockade aimed at choking off Tehran's crude oil exports and pressuring it toward a deal. The helicopters operate from ships in the Gulf of Oman and the approaches to the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil passes.
The crash came as a fragile pause in the wider conflict appeared to hold. Iran and Israel halted attacks on each other on Tuesday after exchanging their heaviest strikes in months over the weekend, with Trump saying both sides were moving toward an immediate ceasefire. Talks between Washington and Tehran, mediated by Pakistan, have centred on freedom of navigation through Hormuz, Iran's nuclear and ballistic programmes, sanctions and reconstruction.
Task Force 59 was created in 2021 to fold unmanned vessels and machine-learning surveillance into Fifth Fleet operations across the Gulf, Red Sea and Arabian Sea. Monday's recovery marks the first time one of its drones has been used to save lives at sea rather than to watch or patrol, a milestone the Navy has long said the technology was capable of reaching.
Officials gave no timeline for the investigation into the Apache's loss. The two-seat AH-64, built by Boeing, is among the most heavily used attack helicopters in the U.S. arsenal and has flown extensively in the Gulf since the conflict with Iran began.