On April 25th 1980, during the Iran hostage crisis, an American helicopter crashed into a transport plane and caught fire. Eight American soldiers and one Iranian civilian were killed.

　On April 25th 1980, during the Iran hostage crisis, an American military helicopter crashed and caught fire after colliding with a transport plane. As a result, the fire destroyed both aircraft, killing eight American soldiers and one Iranian civilian. The bodies of those who died in the fire were scattered around the wreckage of the two aircraft.

　The American military operation to free the hostages at the American embassy on April 25th 1980 was a complete failure. A commando unit of the American military departed from an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf in eight helicopters. They were scheduled to meet up with a transport plane at a predetermined point in the Iranian desert. Two of the helicopters had already encountered technical problems on the way, forcing the operation to be suspended. After the rescue operation was suspended and refueled, the helicopter crashed and caught fire at around 2:40 p.m. after colliding with the transport plane.

　As a result, the fire destroyed both aircraft, killing eight American soldiers and one Iranian civilian. Five of the 14 American Air Force crew members on board the EC-130 and three of the five American Marine Corps crew members on board the RH-53D and three of the five US Marine Corps crew members on board the RH-53D were killed. The EC-130 was a single-engine light utility helicopter, while the RH-530 was a heavy transport helicopter family. Furthermore, as soon as the rescue operation was known to Iran, the hostages at the US embassy were dispersed to secret locations in Iran.

　The Iran Hostage Crisis began on November 4th 1979, when around 3,000 militant Iranian students stormed the American Embassy in Tehran and took nearly 60 American diplomats hostage. On September 22, 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, and the Iran-Iraq War broke out. In the US presidential election on November 4, 1980, President Jimmy Carter suffered a landslide defeat. The American embassy hostages were freed on January 20th 1981, just a few minutes after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as President of the United States. They had been held hostage for approximately 444 days.