Israel destroys one of Iran's last remaining F-14 Tomcats — iconic US fighter jet from ‘Top Gun'
The Israel Defense Forces has released dramatic footage of its air force destroying two of Iran's last remaining F-14 Tomcats — the iconic US fighter jets made famous by 'Top Gun.'
Aerial videos show the moment the two US-made jets are blown up in Israeli drone strikes on an airfield near Tehran.
Advertisement
Both airframes are destroyed in the videos, which show a huge ball of flame emerging from the scene of the strikes.
'These jets were intended to intercept Israeli aircraft,' the IDF wrote alongside the footage on X.
5 Israel has shared footage of its Air Force destroying two Iranian F-14 Tomcat fighter jets.
X / IDF
Advertisement
The devastating strike, part of what the IDF called a wider preemptive operation, was confirmed by its spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, during a Monday press briefing.
Further heart-stopping footage of an Israeli strike on Iranian soldiers reportedly preparing to launch drones at Israel was also shared on X by the Times of Israel reporter Emanuel Fabian.
The F-14 Tomcat, a two-seater twin-tail fighter aircraft built by US manufacturer Grumman, was retired by the United States Navy almost two decades ago in September 2006, more than three decades after it was introduced in September 1974.
5 Drone footage shows the two US-made jets exploding in huge fireballs during strikes at a Tehran airfield.
X / IDF
Advertisement
However, it has remained in service in Iran, after the pre-Islamist government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi bought a total of 80 F-14s from the US in the early '70s before the 1979 Islamic Revolution saw relations sour between Washington and Tehran.
Iran still has a reported 40 to 42 Tomcats at its disposal, and to this day, remains the only country outside the United States to have ever flown the fighter jet, The Aviationist reports.
The F-14 Tomcat famously features in the 1986 action blockbuster 'Top Gun.'
Producers paid the US Navy almost $900,000 for flight time in an F-14.
Advertisement
5 The iconic F-14 was created by the US manufacturer Grumman in the early 1970s.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
5 Iran is the only country outside of the US to ever use the Tomcat.
X / IDF
The movie starring Tom Cruise was such a hit that the US Navy set up recruitment desks outside movie theaters.
An F-14 Tomcat also made an appearance in the sequel, 'Top Gun: Maverick,' in 2022.
5 The fighter jets are associated with the 1986 movie 'Top Gun.'
AP
Reports are conflicted as to the condition of the 50-year-old aircraft seen in the IDF video.
Defense analysts reviewing the imagery suggested that the two F-14s seen in the footage were likely no longer airworthy and had been grounded for some time, Defence Blog reported.
Advertisement
It comes as the deadly conflict between Israel and Iran enters its fourth day.
In Iran, 224 people have been killed, while 24 have died in Israel since hostilities began.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
6 minutes ago
- Forbes
Jobs Data Revision Misses Real Issue Business Leaders Must Understand
The recent employment report revised net job creation substantially, leading many commentators to opine that the economy had weakened. An alternative view more accurately reflects the underlying data: Our labor force is hardly growing, so low job growth says little about the economy's strength. The employment market differs hugely from what it used be—and even more from popular perception as expressed in the news and by politicians. In truth, the U.S. labor force is hardly growing. Thus, jobs are not the best measure of economic performance. And both business leaders and government officials need to understand this new world. In the Great Depression, layoffs were common and people correctly understood that the economy needed more jobs offered to the unemployed. That attitude eased a little when soldiers and sailors came home from World War II and found employment at salaries well above pre-war levels. But then the workforce grew rapidly. The baby boomers started coming of working age in the late 1960s and '70s. Then the children of the baby boomers started looking for jobs. And during this era, women increasingly entered the job market. In the decade starting in 1951, the U.S. labor force grew by 1.2% percent per year. Two decades later the growth rate more than doubled to 2.6% per year. That era of labor abundance formed common opinion about the need to create more jobs. In public policy discussions, job creation dominated the topic. Local governments tried to bring jobs into their communities. National politicians promised to create more jobs. In businesses, managers knew they had plenty of applicants for every job. Catering to workers was a waste of effort. The current decade, 2020 through 2030, has the lowest growth of the working-age population since the Civil War. And the percentage of females who choose to work has been roughly level since 2000. Official estimates indicate the U.S. labor force shrunk by one-quarter of a percent from January through July 2025. Those are not high-fidelity numbers, but probably in the ballpark. Foreign immigration plays a huge role in our low labor force growth. The data in the nearby chart incorporate estimates of undocu mented/illegal immigration. Note the decline in immigration during the first Trump administration, 2017-2020, then the surge in immigration during the Biden years. Anyone can easily predict the direction for the second Trump administration. Net immigration in 2024 (for the 12 months ending July 1, 2024) totaled 2.8 million people. About 2.1 million of them were in the 18-64 years age range. Without the immigrants, that age range would have shrunk by half a million people, because the baby boomers turning 65 exceeded the number of teens turning 18. Now, mid-2025, immigration is very low at best and possibly zero or even negative, depending on the actual scale of deportations and voluntary departures. Our working-age population is probably shrinking. With the pool of people available for work going down, job growth will be difficult. Wages would have to rise to induce more people to work. They would come from the ranks of college students, stay-at-home parents, early retirees and those otherwise not working. That is possible but requires stimulus at a level that would probably be inflationary. In sum, President Trump's immigration policy combines with the demographic trend of aging boomers to make job growth extremely difficult. Business leaders face a number of issues that they must respond to promptly with respect to the labor force. They must acknowledge the tight labor supply in many different ways. When thinking of productivity, admonishing people to work harder won't cut it. The people can walk across the street to find another job. Instead, business leaders must provide better tools, better training and better first-level management to boost output per worker. Employee retention cannot be taken for granted in the new labor environment. In particular, the way managers could behave a generation ago won't work today. It's not so much social change and generational attitudes as that employees are hard to replace and will be for many years to come. Guides for better retention are readily available, but many managers are so caught up in current challenges that they don't take time to learn how to better engage employees. High engagement correlates strongly with employee productivity and retention. Senior business leaders must ensure that first-level managers build their expertise in this area. Employee recruiting needs substantial rethinking. Corey Harlock has pointed out that even small businesses need plans for attracting job applicants and then selling them on the job. That's a huge reversal from the old approach in which the manager sifted through a large stack of applications and then the applicants nearly begged for the job. On the public policy side, citizens should push back against political candidates who are so unaware of the facts that they push for simply more job creation. 'Better jobs' must trump 'more jobs.' Politicians should be challenged to look for impediments to opportunity and skill improvement. Occupational licensing, diploma requirements for government employment and poor performance of public schools and colleges must top the economic agenda for political candidates. Our economy can continue to grow even if our workforce does not. Productivity improvement through upgraded skills and better technology will do the trick. But we need to understand that these are the key drivers for the future.
Yahoo
18 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump Downplays Expectations for Summit Deal With Putin
(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump downplayed expectations for his upcoming meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin as the US president seeks to end the war in Ukraine, casting it as a 'feel-out meeting' and saying he would confer with Ukrainian and European leaders after the sitdown. 'I'm going to be telling him, 'You got to end this war. You got to end it,'' Trump said Monday at a White House press conference. As he previewed the Aug. 15 summit with Putin in Alaska — the Russian leader's first visit to US soil in nearly a decade — Trump added that it wasn't 'up to me to make a deal.' Sunseeking Germans Face Swiss Backlash Over Alpine Holiday Congestion New York Warns of $34 Billion Budget Hole, Biggest Since 2009 Crisis To Head Off Severe Storm Surges, Nova Scotia Invests in 'Living Shorelines' Chicago Schools' Bond Penalty Widens as $734 Million Gap Looms A New Stage for the Theater That Gave America Shakespeare in the Park 'I'm going to go and see the parameters,' Trump added. 'I may leave and say, 'Good luck,' and that'll be the end. I may say this is not going to be settled.' He indicated he did not plan to invite Volodymyr Zelenskiy to the summit, saying the next step after the Alaska meeting would be for Putin and the Ukrainian president to meet directly. Trump said he would mediate that conversation, if necessary. 'I would say he could go, but he's gone to a lot of meetings,' Trump said of Zelenskiy. 'You know, he's been there for three-and-a-half years, nothing happened.' Trump's effort to moderate expectations for the summit follows Zelenskiy ruling out Putin's demand for territory that Moscow doesn't control as a pre-condition for a ceasefire, with the Ukrainian leader citing the need for constitutional approval. Trump on Monday slammed that excuse, adding that he was 'a little bothered' by it. As diplomatic efforts continue to end the Kremlin's war on its neighbor, Ukraine and its European allies have been pushing for a halt to the fighting, freezing the current frontline as a first step before talks on a more enduring settlement. Putin is demanding that Ukraine cede its entire eastern Donbas area as well as Crimea, which his forces illegally annexed in 2014, as a condition to unlock a ceasefire and enter negotiations over a longer-term accord. Trump said he expected to confer with Zelenskiy and European allies by phone immediately after his meeting with Putin. The president said he expected to either outline to them the contours of a deal that included land swaps negotiated with Putin, or that he did not believe a peace deal could be brokered. 'I think we'll have constructive conversations, then after that meeting, immediately, maybe as I'm flying out, maybe, as I'm leaving the room, I'll be calling the European leaders,' Trump said. This week's meeting with Putin represents a high-stakes gamble for the US president, who campaigned on ending the war quickly but whose efforts have been frustrated in office. Ceding to Putin's demands would require Zelenskiy to order a withdrawal of troops from parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions still held by Kyiv. Trump said there may be 'some changes' in land. 'We're going to change the lines, the battle lines. Russia has occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They've occupied some very prime territory. We're going to try and get some of that territory back for Ukraine,' he added. Such an arrangement would hand Russia a victory that its army has not been able to achieve militarily since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said over the weekend that territory would 'have to be on the table' along with security guarantees for Ukraine. Territorial Integrity The prospect of Trump and Putin negotiating a deal that swaps land for peace has worried European leaders, fearful that the US president will concede too much and leave Ukraine without security guarantees against further Russian aggression or stick allies with policing an uncertain truce. 'As far as Russia has not agreed to full and unconditional ceasefire, we should not even discuss any concessions,' European Union top diplomat Kaja Kallas said Monday as EU foreign ministers and their Ukrainian counterpart met for a video call. 'It has never worked in the past with Russia, and will not work with Putin today.' Zelenskiy, along with the leaders of France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Poland and Finland, will hold a call with Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday ahead of the summit with Putin. In a statement agreed late on Monday, EU leaders said that any peace agreement must 'respect international law, including the principles of independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity,' adding that international borders must not be changed by force. The joint statement, which was agreed by all member states except for Hungary, said that the bloc and individual member states 'are ready to further contribute to security guarantees based on their respective competences and capabilities.' The statement also noted Ukraine's right to choose its own destiny, underlining the EU's continued support for Kyiv's bid to join the European Union. --With assistance from Piotr Skolimowski, Andrea Palasciano and Alberto Nardelli. (Updates with a fresh statement from EU leaders in the last three paragraphs.) Why It's Actually a Good Time to Buy a House, According to a Zillow Economist Bessent on Tariffs, Deficits and Embracing Trump's Economic Plan The Social Media Trend Machine Is Spitting Out Weirder and Weirder Results Klarna Cashed In on 'Buy Now, Pay Later.' Now It Wants to Be a Bank The Game Starts at 8. The Robbery Starts at 8:01 ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
The Hill
35 minutes ago
- The Hill
Iran says it detained 21,000 suspects during the June war with Israel
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's police detained 21,000 suspects during the 12-day air war between Israel and Iran in June, state media reported on Tuesday. A report by state TV quoted a police spokesperson, Gen. Saeed Montazeralmahdi, as saying people reported the suspects to the authorities. 'The arrest of 21,000 suspects during the 12-day war indicated high awareness and participation of people in providing security,' he said. Montazeralmahdi did not elaborate on what charges the suspects might face. However, he said more than 260 were suspected of spying and other 172 were arrested because of illegal filming. He added that police put more than 1,000 checkpoints across the country during the conflict, between June 13-24. This is the first time Iran's police has given a total number of arrests during the war. In recent weeks Iran occasionally reported about the arrests of suspects on spying charges. Since the end of June, Iran has executed seven men convicted of spying for Israel, sparking fears from activists that the government could conduct a wave of executions. Israel carried out waves of airstrikes on Iran, killing nearly 1,100 people, including many military commanders. Retaliatory Iranian strikes killed 28 people in Israel.
