U.S. army helicopter crew rescued after crash off the coast of Oman

U.S. army helicopter crew rescued after crash off the coast of Oman

U.S. military says crash happened around 3:30 a.m. local time while the aircraft was on patrol

A U.S. Army helicopter crashed near the Strait of Hormuz, and President Donald Trump said the two crew members aboard were not injured in the incident near the strategic waterway that Iran has effectively closed during the war.

What caused the crash of the U.S. Army Apache helicopter — first reported by the New York Times — remained unclear Tuesday morning.

Trump, speaking to journalists at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York after watching the NBA Finals on Monday night, acknowledged the crash.

"The pilots are fine. Yeah," Trump said. "Nobody injured. We are going to issue a report tomorrow. But the pilots are fine."

The crash happened about 3:30 a.m. local time Tuesday off the coast of Oman while on a patrol, the U.S. military's Central Command said in a later statement. It said the crew had been rescued within two hours and were in stable condition.

AH-64 Apache helicopters have been a key asset for the U.S. military as it enforces a blockade on Iranian crude oil shipments and tankers, seeking to pressure Tehran into reaching a deal. The helicopters have also been used by the United Arab Emirates to shoot down Iranian drones during the Iran war.

According to a mid-May report submitted to Congress, 42 U.S. aircraft had either been lost or damaged up until that point. The majority were Reaper drones, but search-and-rescue helicopters and fighter and fuelling aircraft were also lost.

Around the same time, a Pentagon official told Congress the cost of the war was approaching $30 billion US, with the repair and replacement costs for equipment accounting for a significant share of that total.

Iran acknowledges military deaths

The war began on Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes that killed several top Iranian military and clerical leaders. It has shaken the global economy, driven up energy prices around the world and made many basics, including food and gasoline, more expensive.

A tenuous ceasefire reached April 8 had been tested in recent days by exchanges of attacks. Iran and Israel said on Monday that they had halted attacks on each other after an appeal ⁠from Trump.

Iranian state television on Tuesday reported that at least two members of an air defence unit were killed in the Israeli attacks that rocked the country the day before. The report represented the first time Iran acknowledged fatalities from the attacks.

Iranian state TV identified the men as Bahman Hosseini and Ali Reza Abiri, without offering a rank for them. It said they would be buried in a city outside of Tehran.

Trump, as he has for several weeks, also expressed renewed optimism over negotiations with Iran.

"We have a good chance" of signing a deal in "two or three days," Trump said. But he didn't provide any details or reason for new optimism.

Israel, Iran stop exchanging attacks

Mediators, led predominantly by Pakistan, have been trying for weeks to get a deal across the line. However, both Iran and the U.S. have taken hard-line positions.

Steve Witkoff, one of the Trump's top diplomatic envoys who has been involved in the talks, was in New York with Trump at the Knicks game.

The U.S. wants to see Iran give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which is believed still to be entombed in the country after American airstrikes in the 12-day war in 2025. But Iran is refusing that and demanding relief from sanctions. It also wants the release of frozen assets even before a final agreement is in place, something rejected by Trump.

Meanwhile Tuesday, the Israeli military issued an evacuation warning for Lebanon's southern port city of Tyre, including the Christian quarter, which has so far been spared in the destructive airstrikes on the port city.

Last week, Israel warned the Christian neighbourhoods in Tyre that it believed Hezbollah members were among them. Many Lebanese Shia Muslims fled to those areas as Israeli strikes hammered the Mediterranean coastal area over the past two weeks.

After last week's warning, the Lebanese army deployed to the Christian district of Tyre in an effort to prevent Israeli attacks there and to show that Hezbollah has no armed presence in the area. But Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military's Arabic-language spokesperson, posted on X on Monday that the Israeli military "will have to act against their terrorist activities in the neighbourhood soon."