TEHRAN – Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) announced on Sunday that it successfully destroyed a United States Air Force Boeing E-3 Sentry surveillance aircraft in a strike that targeted a U.S.-operated military installation in Saudi Arabia.

In an official statement, the IRGC’s Aerospace Force said a coordinated missile and drone operation completely destroyed the aircraft—an Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AWACS)—as well as causing severe damage to other planes nearby.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) initially claimed that there had been “minor” damage to planes deployed to the Prince Sultan Air Base in Al Kharj. But Images circulating on social media prove that an Iranian projectile struck the E-3 aircraft near the tail section, hitting the most sensitive and expensive component of the plane: the AN/APY2 reconnaissance radar. The targeted plane was reportedly deployed to the region from Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City.

Since the war began on February 28, Iran has struck at least 13 American radar systems across the region. But targeting the E3 Sentry marks a larger setback for the United States. The E3 serves as the “quarterback” of modern air warfare—a flying command center that provides allweather surveillance, command, control, and communications. It directs fighter jets, manages the battlespace to avoid friendlyfire incidents, and supplies a unified picture of enemy activity. Losing it is comparable to a football team losing both its quarterback and its coach midgame.

The destruction of an E3 is unprecedented. These aircraft are among the most valuable assets in the U.S. arsenal and are normally kept far from the front lines under heavy protection. Their loss is rare, and therefore strategically significant.

The strike also exposes a major weakness in U.S. air power. Reports indicate that the United States now has only about sixteen operational E3 aircraft, and they are aging. Each one is built on the Boeing 707 airframe, which has not been produced in decades, making replacement extremely difficult. Losing even a single platform can seriously limit America’s ability to monitor vast areas of airspace across regions such as West Asia.

Damage at Al Kharj may worsen existing problems. The base has already been targeted in recent weeks, with earlier attacks damaging KC135 aerial refueling tankers. Without tankers to extend fighterjet range and without AWACS aircraft to coordinate operations and monitor the battlespace, the effectiveness of U.S. fighter squadrons in the region could be severely diminished.

The Boeing E3 Sentry itself is a militarized derivative of the Boeing 707, modified with a large rotating radar dome—known as a rotodome—mounted above the fuselage. Its main mission is longrange surveillance and commandandcontrol, enabling it to detect and track enemy aircraft, ships, and even ground units from hundreds of miles away. The core of the system is the AN/APY1 or AN/APY2 radar housed in the rotodome. This radar can look down from high altitude and distinguish lowflying aircraft from ground clutter, a critical “lookdown/shootdown” capability.

Each E3 is valued at roughly $500 million.