Pilots safe after US helicopter crash near Strait of Hormuz, says Trump

A US Army helicopter crashed near the Strait of Hormuz, but President Donald Trump said the two crew members aboard were not injured in the incident near the strategic waterway that Iran has effectively closed during the war.

What caused the crash remained unclear Tuesday morning in West Asia, which was still reeling after Iran and Israel exchanged fire the previous day in the biggest blow yet to the straining ceasefire in the Iran war. Iranian State television reported Tuesday that the Israeli attacks killed at least two members of the country’s air defence units.

Since the US and Israel began striking Iran on February 28, the war has shaken the global economy, driven up energy prices around the world and made many basics, including food, more expensive. Officials have been unable to turn the April ceasefire into a deal to permanently end the conflict, particularly as Israel intensifies and expands its military campaign in Lebanon against the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah.

Trump, speaking to journalists at John F Kennedy International Airport in New York after watching the NBA Finals on Monday night, acknowledged the crash.

“The pilots are fine. Yeah,” Trump said. “Nobody injured. We are going to issue a report tomorrow. But the pilots are fine.”

The New York Times first reported that a US Army Apache attack helicopter went down near the strait in unclear circumstances. The US military’s Central Command and the Defence Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

Apache helicopters have been a key asset for the American military as they enforce a blockade on Iranian crude oil shipments and tankers, seeking to pressure Tehran into reaching a deal. The helicopters have also been used by the United Arab Emirates to shoot down Iranian drones during the Iran war.

Trump also expressed renewed optimism over negotiations with Iran.

“We have a good chance” of signing a deal in “two or three days,” Trump said. But he didn’t provide any details on why there was reason for new optimism. Trump has repeatedly predicted that a deal is near over the past two months since the US and Iran agreed to an initial ceasefire.

“We’re very close to having a very, very good, strong, powerful deal,” the president said. “If we go and bomb - which we could do very easily if we want, and we spend another two- or three-weeks bombing - they’ll have nothing left whatsoever. But you won’t have the strait open for months.”

He added, “If we do the bombing, you know, a lot of people are going to be killed. Who wants to do that? I don’t.”

Mediators, led predominantly by Pakistan, have been trying for weeks to get a deal across the line. However, both Iran and the US have taken hard-line positions.

The US wants to see Iran give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which is believed still to be entombed in the country after American airstrikes in the 12-day war in 2025. But Iran is refusing that and demanding relief from sanctions. It also wants the release of frozen assets even before a final agreement is in place, something rejected by Trump.

Before Trump’s comments on negotiations, Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Monday that Trump’s remarks so far on a possible deal “contradicted the agreed-upon sections, showing that (the US is) neither seeking a ceasefire nor dialogue.”

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the Israeli military issued an evacuation warning for Lebanon’s southern port city of Tyre, including the Christian quarter, which has so far been spared in the destructive airstrikes on the port city.

Last week, Israel warned the Christian neighbourhoods in Tyre that it believed Hezbollah members were among them. Many Lebanese Shiite Muslims fled to those areas as Israeli strikes hammered the Mediterranean coastal area over the past two weeks.

After last week’s warning, the Lebanese army deployed to the Christian district of Tyre in an effort to prevent Israeli attacks there and to show that Hezbollah has no armed presence in the area. But Avichay Adraee, the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson, posted on X on Monday that the Israeli military “will have to act against their terrorist activities in the neighbourhood soon.”