B-2 bombers return home after historic Iran operation
The B-2 stealth bombers that dropped 14 massive bombs on Iran's nuclear facilities were filmed returning home to their base in Missouri after the historic operation. Seven of the B-2 Spirit bombers came in for landing at Whiteman Air Force Base, about 73 miles southeast of Kansas City, on Sunday after a roughly 36 hour flight to strike targets in Iran. The first group of four of the stealth aircraft did a loop around the base before approaching a runway from the north, while a final group of three arrived within 10 minutes.
President Donald Trump took to his platform Truth Social to welcome the pilots home what he called a 'monumental' mission, saying: 'Thank you for a job well done!!!' 'The hits were hard and accurate. Great skill was shown by our military,' he added in another post. The B-2 bombers had been part of a wide-ranging Operation 'Midnight Hammer' that officially entered the US into Israel's conflict with Iran.
Pilots dropped 30,000-pound bombs on Iran's three main nuclear sites, delivering what US military leaders hailed as a knockout blow to a nuclear program that Israel views as an existential threat and has been pummeling for more than a week. But Iran on Monday launched 10 missiles at the US military Al Udeid base in Qatar, America's biggest base in the Middle East, in response to the Saturday bombings.
A group of B-2 bombers took off from Whiteman Air Force Base Saturday night and were noticed heading out toward the Pacific island of Guam, in what experts saw as possible pre-positioning for any US decision to strike Iran. But the group was a merely a decoy and another flight of seven bat-winged B-2 stealth bombers quietly flew off eastward, ultimately engaging in the Iran mission. The group flew east undetected for 18 hours as pilots kept communications to a minimum and refueled in mid-air.
Their B-2s' iconic shape was created to help minimize the plane's radar signature, making it much easier for them to fly incognito. As the bombers neared Iranian airspace, an US submarine launched more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles. Fighter jets flew as decoys in front of the bombers to sweep for any Iranian fighter jets and missiles.
The B-2 bombers then dropped 14 bunker-busting GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators, each weighing 30,000 pounds. The operation involved over 125 US military aircraft, according to the Pentagon. Iran neither detected the inbound fusillade, nor mustered a shot at the stealthy American jets, officials added, hailing the operation a resounding tactical success.
'Iran's fighters did not fly, and it appears that Iran's surface to air missile systems did not see us throughout the mission,' General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon on Sunday. 'We retained the element of surprise.' 'It was clear we devastated the Iranian nuclear program,' Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth added, standing alongside Caine in the Pentagon briefing room.
Midnight Hammer was highly classified 'with very few people in Washington knowing the timing or nature of the plan.' Many senior US officials only learned of it on Saturday night from Trump's first post on social media. Hegseth said it took months of preparations to ensure the US military would be ready if Trump ordered the strikes. Caine said the mission itself, however, came together in just a matter of weeks.
The attack was the largest operational strike ever by B-2 stealth bombers, and the second-longest B-2 operation ever flown, surpassed only by those following the September 11, 2001 attacks by al Qaeda. Iran warned the US would 'directly pay' for strikes on its nuclear facilities 'rather than standing behind Israel'. Tehran also said it was prepared for a war lasting up to two years. Iran announced on state television Monday that it attacked American forces stationed at Qatar's Al Udeid Air Base.
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