Just after midnight on June 8, O'Grady spoke into the radio. An F-16 pilot, Captain Thomas "T.O." Hanford, from the 510th responded and, after confirming his identity, the rescue was set in motion. At 0440 local time, USAF General Michael Ryan and Navy Admiral Leighton Smith, commander of NATO Southern Forces, called US Marine Corps Colonel Martin Berndt aboard USS Kearsarge with orders to "execute".

Two CH-53 Sea Stallions with 51 marines from the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines within the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit lifted off USS Kearsarge to rescue the pilot. The two helicopters were accompanied by two Marine Corps AH-1W Supercobra helicopter gunships and a pair of Marine Corps AV-8B Harrier jump jets, one piloted by Captain Ronald C. Walkerwicz. These six aircraft had support from identical sets of replacement helicopters and jump jets as well as two Navy EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare planes, two Air Force EF-111A Raven electronic warfare planes, two Marine F/A-18D Hornets, a pair of anti-tank Air Force A-10 Thunderbolts, an SH-60B from USS Ticonderoga, and an RAF AWACS E-3D.

At 0635, the helicopters approached the area where O'Grady's signal beacon had been traced. The pilots saw bright yellow smoke coming from trees near a rocky pasture where O'Grady had set off a flare. The first Sea Stallion, commanded by Major William Tarbutton, touched down and 20 Marines jumped off the aircraft and set up a defensive perimeter. As the second Sea Stallion, commanded by Captains Paul Fortunato and James Wright, landed, a figure with a pistol who turned out to be the missing pilot appeared running towards the Marines and immediately went to the Sea Stallion. As the side door opened, he was pulled in before the second 20 Marines poised to leave by the rear ramp could even move. They were called back to their seats, and those who had formed the defensive perimeter reboarded the other helicopter. After a quick head count, the Stallions took off. They had been on the ground no more than seven minutes.

President Donald Trump threatened to jail journalists at the media outlet that first reported a second airman was missing following the shoot-down of an American fighter jet in Iran on Friday.

Both the pilot and the "back seater" were recovered by American forces in what the president, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine described as separate, daring operations during a White House news conference on Monday.

The pilot was recovered within several hours, while the second airman was stranded in Iranian territory until early Sunday, when U.S. forces landed and rescued him.

Trump said that he would pursue whoever leaked information about the second airman — which the U.S. government had hoped to keep secret in order to prevent him from being captured or killed by Iran — and pressure the news media to assist in that investigation.

“We think we’ll be able to find it out,” Trump said. “Because we’re going to go to the media company that released it, and we’re going to say, ‘National security. Give it up or go to jail.’”

A White House official declined to name the news outlet in a text exchange with NBC News, citing a desire to avoid tipping off the journalists.

The White House press office told NBC News that "an investigation is underway."