Donald Trump has praised the US fighter pilot who was rescued from an Iranian mountain over the weekend.

The airman was on board an F-15E Strike Eagle jet that was shot down by Iran on Friday, the first US aircraft to be downed by Iranian fire since the US and Israel launched the war at the end of February.

While a second crew member was located shortly after the crash, US News understands he was left stranded in rural Iran, and was rescued on Sunday.

At a news conference at the White House on Easter Monday, the US president said that both pilots were “incredibly brave” and that Iran was “not so strong like they were about a month ago”.

After updates on Monday, here’s what we know about the airman’s condition, the mission to rescue him, and what the president and Iran have said.

Iran war latest: Trump praises ‘brave’ US pilots after rescue

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From Sunday: How the rescue of US pilot in Iran could have played out

How did the US save the airman?

After the crash on Friday, official and semi-official Iranian news organisations reported that a regional governor had offered a bounty for the F-15E crew – around $60,000 (£45,360).

A US official told the Reuters news agency the plane was flying over Isfahan province when it was brought down, and the two airmen ejected separately.

They said that the first pilot was rescued while the second airman – the jet’s weapons specialist, and a colonel – remained in Iran.

Speaking to Reuters, the US source said the American officer sprained his ankle in the crash and hid in a crevice on a hilltop.

The airman later established contact with the US military and confirmed his identity.

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What Trump didn’t mention in message about dramatic airman rescue

After this, a senior Trump administration official said the CIA had run a deception campaign earlier, hoping to confuse Tehran by planting information that US forces had already located the missing airman and were moving him before the operation took place.

An official told Reuters the US military then took additional steps, jamming electronics and bombing key roads around the location to prevent people from getting close.

They said the aircraft eventually sent to extract the airman and rescue forces were smaller turboprop aircraft, capable of landing on small airfields and relatively light.

Mr Trump provided more details of the operation at a later briefing, revealing that US military personnel faced gunfire at “very close range” during the rescue, which involved 155 aircraft, he said.

Among the craft deployed were four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers and 13 rescue aircraft, he said.

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Iran releases footage of aircraft debris

The president told reporters the unidentified airman was ​hiding in mountains and kept climbing ​higher in order to improve ​the chances for a successful recovery.

He said, for the rescuers, it was like looking for “a needle in a haystack”.

Hundreds of US forces took part in ⁠the mission ​and helped prevent Tehran from ​finding him first, he said, adding that “hundreds of people could have been killed”.

Not everyone approved the plan, Mr Trump said, pointing to unnamed members of the military who warned him that “‘you just don’t do this'”.

He said he understood that, “but I decided to do it”.

Calling the rescue “very historic,” he said the airman, a colonel, had landed in Iran a “significant distance away from the pilot” who had been rescued on Friday.

The second airman was “injured quite badly”, stranded and surrounded by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fighters – which he called a “rough group”, along with other hostile forces.

“Despite the peril, the officer followed his training and climbed into the treacherous mountain terrain and started climbing toward a higher altitude, something they were trained to do in order to evade capture,” he said.

Even though he was “bleeding rather profusely,” and treated his own wounds, the serviceman “contacted American forces to transmit his location” using what Trump said is a “very sophisticated beeper-type apparatus” that “saved his life.

“We immediately mobilised a massive operation to retrieve him from the mountain hold-out,” Mr Trump said.

“The heroic F-15 weapons system officer had evaded capture on the ground in Iran for almost 48 hours,” he said.

“In a breathtaking show of skill and precision, lethality and force, America’s military descended on the area” before they “engaged the enemy” and “rescued the stranded officer, destroyed all threats and exited Iranian territory while taking no casualties of any kind”.

The president said that there was a problem leaving Iran because of the “wet sand” and the “weight of the plane,” which became “pretty well bogged down”.

Eventually, “lighter, faster aircraft” flew in to take the Americans out of Iran, with the stuck aircraft destroyed.

How dangerous was the rescue mission?

The initial search effort encountered fierce resistance, with two Black Hawk helicopters involved in the search reportedly hit by Iranian fire but they escaped.

In a separate incident, a pilot ejected from an A-10 Warthog fighter aircraft after it was hit over Kuwait and crashed, the officials said, though the extent of crew injuries was unclear.

The conflict has killed 13 US military service members, with more than 300 wounded, the US Central Command says. No US troops have been taken prisoner by Iran.

Two MC-130 aircraft that ferried some of the roughly 100 special operations forces into rugged terrain south of Tehran suffered a mechanical failure and could not take off.

Their commanders made a high-risk decision, ordering additional aircraft to fly into Iran to extract the group in waves.

US troops then destroyed the disabled MC-130s and four additional helicopters in Iran.

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What else has Trump said?

During the operation, Mr Trump was relatively quiet online, with a local reporter checking if he was at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington DC.

After the mission was finished though, the US president said on Truth Social: “Over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in U.S. History”.

He added that the airman was injured, but “he will be just fine”, before saying: “This is the first time in military memory that two U.S. Pilots have been rescued, separately, deep in Enemy Territory.

“WE WILL NEVER LEAVE AN AMERICAN WARFIGHTER BEHIND!”

At an Easter event at the White House, Mr Trump said of the rescue that “normally you’re in very hostile territory, and I don’t think it gets much more hostile than (Iran) are, and they’re capable fighters”.

“You don’t mind when the enemy is weak, but that enemy is strong, not so strong like they were about a month ago, I can tell you”, he added.

“In fact, right now they’re not too strong at all in my opinion, but we’re soon going to find out, aren’t we?”

The US president also said that “what we did yesterday is we picked up not one – we picked up two” – referring to the first pilot thought to be rescued. It’s unclear whether he misspoke.

He added: “We kept the first one quiet, and we were able to keep it quiet for about a day, which made it a lot better. But those two pilots were incredibly brave, and we thank them.”

What has Iran said?

Iran’s state TV showed on Sunday a picture of black smoke from what it said was a destroyed American transport plane and two helicopters.

Iranian state media on Friday also said a second US plane – an A-10 aircraft – crashed after being hit by Iranian forces.

The US military has not commented on the status of that aircraft or its crew.

And on the US’s rescue efforts on Sunday, Iran said several aircraft were destroyed.