In June 2025, Operation Midnight Hammer struck Iran’s nuclear program with devastating precision. While B-2 bombers delivered the bunker busters, a different aircraft quietly decided the mission’s fate. Newly released Air Force details reveal how F-35 Lightning IIs shattered Iran’s air defenses in minutes, clearing the skies for the strike force. The real story of that night begins long before the bombs fell.
From the transcript:
In the early hours of June 22, 2025, the United States Air Force and Navy launched
Operation Midnight Hammer, striking three of Iran’s nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz,
and Isfahan.
The mission was swift, efficient, and successful, with 14 bunker buster bombs
dealing extensive damage to their targets and reportedly setting Iran’s nuclear program back
by up to two years, according to official expert estimates.
Much of the focus at the time of the
attack centered on those bunker buster bombs and the seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers that
delivered them. But the B-2s weren’t the only American aircraft in the skies that night.
They were ably supported by some of the world’s finest fighter jets – F-35 Lightning IIs. For
a long time, details of the F-35s’ role in this mission were kept under wraps. But now,
we know all the fascinating details, with the Air Force recently revealing how F-35 fighters utterly obliterated Iran’s entire air defense network in a matter of minutes, leaving the country’s nuclear facilities wide open for the B-2 bombing runs. In a series of official reports which were analyzed and compiled in Air & Space Forces Magazine, Air Force officials explained how the F-35s were responsible for both suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) operations in Iran, as well as providing fighter cover for the strike force as it left Iranian air space in the wake of the bombings. Experts and analysts had long assumed that the F-35s were used for SEAD purposes, but the Air Force hadn’t released any official statements to confirm or deny this, until now
h/t b4its2l8