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I struggle to see this as a propaganda win. It was a clusterfuck from the beginning with an F-15 being shot down, multiple search vehicles getting damaged , and then having to destroy additional ones because of logistics fuck ups. It screams of incompetence and a poorly thought out military action.
An F-15E Strike Eagle has a cost of $31m (though a new replacement could be $100m) but it is the rescue, far more high-risk than whatever mission the US warplane was on, where the difficulties clearly began.
A decision to use an abandoned Iranian airstrip south of Isfahan as a forward operating location went wrong when two C-130 Hercules transporters, probably modified search and rescue variants, got stuck in the ground.
They were destroyed by the US to prevent them falling into the Iranians’ hands, US sources indicated, and more transporters had to be brought forward to complete the extraction of the wounded second crew member. Each of the modified Hercules have a list price of nearly $115m.
An HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter involved in the rescue was also damaged by gunfire on Friday – so it is easy to conclude that the cost in lost and damaged airframes exceeds $250m, largely for the rescue of the second crew member.
Forgetting the war crimes committed by the aggressors against the people of Iran, for a moment, it's amazing how expensive this operation to rescue someone is.
The family of the first crew member may begin to feel their family member has been a little forgotten in all this.