The Daily Populous Saturday April 4th, 2026 morning edition
Authored by news.sky.com and submitted by Galactos1

What does the downing of a US fighter jet mean?

If you're just catching up with our Iran coverage, the video from our US correspondent Mark Stone is a great place to start.

The news that an American F-15 fighter jet has gone down over Iran has gone against what the Trump administration has repeatedly said: that the US controls the skies.

"They have no anti-aircraft equipment, their radar is 100% annihilated, we are unstoppable as a military force," the president had said.

"Complete control of Iranian skies, uncontested airspace," his defence secretary Pete Hegseth asserted.

And yet, that appears not to be the case.

More than 24 hours after the reports of the loss of the aircraft emerged, there has been no official statement from the Pentagon or Trump administration.

Now the Americans are faced with, as Mark describes it, a "risky rescue operation".

Watch: How Iran undermined US 'air dominance'

D3struct_oh on April 3rd, 2026 at 22:13 UTC »

Trump Administration has no cards.

They can’t bomb their way out of this problem, and they don’t know how to be diplomatic.

Royal-Hunter3892 on April 3rd, 2026 at 19:13 UTC »

Iran is playing all or nothing game with Trump . It's literally forcing US to either wage full scale war or f*ck off. No middle ground .

StrangeMan18 on April 3rd, 2026 at 19:10 UTC »

This war might literally be Trump’s undoing, a country completely ‘defeated’ does not reject a temporary ceasefire that could allow them to reorient