State Department, CENTCOM Say ISIS Didn’t Shoot Down Jordanian Fighter Jet

PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Both the U.S. State Department and U.S. Central Command denies claims that a Jordanian plane was shot down by militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria on Wednesday, instead saying that the plane crashed.

“Evidence clearly indicates that [ISIS] did not down the aircraft as the terrorist organization is claiming,” the U.S. State Department said Wednesday. Instead, the department says, the Jordanian F-16 aircraft crashed near Ar-Raqqah in Syria and the pilot was taken captive by ISIS forces.

CENTCOM’s Gen. Lloyd Austin said Wednesday that the U.S. would “support efforts to ensure [the pilot’s] safe recovery, and will not tolerate [ISIS’] attempts to misrepresent or exploit this unfortunate aircraft crash for their own purposes.”

ISIS had claimed that it shot down the plane with a heat-seeking missile before capturing the pilot.

U.N. spokesperson Stephanie Dujarric said Wednesday that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon “calls on the captors to release the pilot in accordance with international law.”