The U.S. military set up an improvised airfield deep inside Iran to rescue the F-15 airman. Marines just practiced building one in the desert

The dramatic rescue of the F-15 weapons system officer who was shot down over Iran required the U.S. military to set up an improvised airfield deep inside the country in a mountainous region near Isfahan.

The so-called forward arming and refueling point (FARP) helped enable an elaborate mission that reportedly involved hundreds of special operations troops and other military personnel as well as dozens of aircraft.

A senior U.S. military official told the New York Times that the mission was one of the most challenging and complex in the history of U.S. special ops due to the mountainous terrain, the airman’s injuries and the Iranian forces scrambling to find him.

Navy SEAL Team 6 commandos eventually reached the airman, who evaded capture for more than a day and even hiked up a 7,000-foot ridge line, the report said.

But just before extraction, two C-130 transports planes designed for special ops missions got stuck at the FARP, delaying their escape, according to the Times.

Additional planes had to be flown in to retrieve everyone, forcing the U.S. to destroy its own stranded C-130...