A month-old defense report says the U.S. lost 39 aircraft in Iran. A senator read it out loud at a hearing because the Pentagon never said a word

U.S. Democratic Congressman Ed Case made a surprising revelation during a Senate committee hearing, stating that the United States has lost 39 aircraft since the war with Iran began on February 28. The information came from a report by a U.S. defense publication called The War Zone. The Pentagon had not made any public statement about these losses.

According to Anadolu Agency, Case raised the issue while questioning Pentagon Chief Financial Officer Jay Hurst about how much it would cost to replace the aircraft. “We’ve lost about 39 aircraft, according to a report in The War Zone, and that’s an old one that’s almost one month old,” Case said. The War Zone report stated that the U.S. Air Force carried out nearly 13,000 flights during the conflict with Iran.

According to the same report, 39 aircraft were destroyed and another 10 suffered varying levels of damage. The report also claimed that an F-35A Lightning II fighter jet was hit inside Iranian airspace and that a Boeing E-3 Sentry aircraft was destroyed. These claims could not be independently verified. When asked about the cost of replacing the lost aircraft, Hurst replied, “We want to do a full diagnosis of the aircraft before we estimate that cost.”

The Pentagon’s silence on aircraft losses is raising serious accountability concerns

Pentagon officials did not publicly confirm any of the alleged losses during the hearing. The war with Iran has been ongoing since February 28, after the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran, with reports suggesting Israel had spent years planning to bring down Iran’s government. The conflict led to retaliation from Tehran against Israel and U.S. allies in the Gulf, along with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

A ceasefire took effect on April 8 through mediation by Pakistan, but talks held in Islamabad failed to produce a lasting agreement. U.S. President Donald Trump later extended the truce without setting a deadline. Despite this, tensions remained high, as Trump had previously warned Iran of strikes at a far greater scale even while peace talks were reportedly in progress.

The fact that a congressman had to read from a month-old defense publication during a Senate hearing to bring these losses to light points to a serious lack of transparency from the Pentagon. The War Zone report, which is now over a month old, appears to be the only available source for these numbers, and even those figures may no longer reflect the current situation.

As the conflict continues to develop, the U.S. public and lawmakers appear to be relying on media reports rather than official military statements to understand what happened. The Pentagon’s silence has left many questions unanswered, particularly regarding the true scale of aircraft losses during the war with Iran. No further confirmation or denial has been issued by defense officials.