After fall of US plane, Trump vows immediate response to Iran

Mohammed Abdul Ghaffar

The echoes of the Iranian military dropping a US military aircraft over the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday morning, June 20, 2019 are still taking place, according to a US official who told Reuters.

The US military issued a press release on Thursday (June 20th, 2019) announcing that its MQ-4C Triton was flying over international waters, about 34 km from the nearest landline of the Iranian coast.

The commander of the US Air Force in the Middle East, General Joseph Joastela, told reporters at the Pentagon that this dangerous attack was an irresponsible escalation and took place in a legally recognized international air corridor between Dubai, the United Arab Emirates and Muscat, the Sultanate of Oman, which puts civilians at great risk, especially as they did not penetrate Iranian airspace in any way.

US President Donald Trump said in a press statement on Thursday (June 20th) that the plane was unarmed and sailed in international waters clearly, considering that the American response to that will be soon.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard had issued a statement according to the Iranian news agency Tasnim, on Thursday, June 20, 2019, referring to the departure of a US spy plane, modeled Global Hawk, in the middle of the night (Iran time), from one of the bases in the south of the Gulf region, saying that it had turned off recognition devices in order to fly secretly.

The plane, which was dropped by the Iranian army, is a MQ-4C Triton, one of the most important aircraft in the US Army. It can monitor targets around a 360-km radius and is run by a pilot based in a ground base. It flies for 24 hours continuously, carries out reconnaissance missions in a range of 15.1 thousand kilometers and can fly up to 50,000 feet and is manufactured by Northrop Corp.