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It is not true that a pilot named Tyler Jaggers was killed in an attack against a U.S. military base in Saudi Arabia;
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A person of that name did indeed die in March 2026 but he served in the Coast Guard and was injured in a rescue operation off the coast of Washington;
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The photos used in the posts show an inscription ‘Coast Guard’ on the person’s uniform.
Claims about the death of a U.S. pilot “responsible for the strike on an Iranian school” have been circulating on Facebook since March 28.
“American pilot Taylor Jaggers was killed in a missile attack on the Al-Kharj military base in Riyadh,” the posts say, adding that the pilot had been charged with a war crime.
The claim is accompanied by a photograph and footage of the serviceman’s funeral. Bulgarian-language posts cite the Telegram channel “Kremlin_Russian” as their source, but the claim has also been published by English- and Arabic-language accounts including on Facebook as well as other social media.
Posts with the claim appear in pro-Russian groups and groups in support of Bulgaria’s former president Rumen Radev, where they have reached a potential audience of over 30 thousand users.
Factcheck.bg reviewed the claim and found it to be false.
An American serviceman named Taylor Jaggers did indeed die in early March 2026, but he was not a pilot. He was a junior sailor and Aviation Survival Technician assigned to the Astoria Coast Guard Air Station in Oregon.
He died from injuries sustained during a rescue operation off the coast of Washington on Feb. 27. Jaggers was taken to hospital, where he died on March 5, 2026.
His Coast Guard colleagues later honoured him by promoting him to petty officer 2nd class and awarding him the Distinguished Flying Cross, one of the highest military awards for heroism during aerial flight.
The posts circulating in Bulgarian on social media include three images, but a check using the AI or NOT tool found only two of them to be authentic.
In the original images, Jaggers is wearing a uniform bearing the letters “AST,” an abbreviation for Aviation Survival Technician — a Coast Guard role responsible for operating on rescue helicopter missions.
The abbreviation USCG – United States Coast Guard – is also visible.
In the altered image Jaggers is seen wearing a baseball hat with the inscription US Air Force. The Air Force is a distinct body from the U.S. Coast Guard and there is no explanation why a serviceman’s uniform would bear one inscription and the hat another.
The U.S. Prince Sultan Air Base, located near Al-Kharj in Saudi Arabia, was indeed targeted in an Iranian attack on March 28. According to international media reports, at least 15 U.S. service members were wounded in the missile and drone strike. Five were seriously injured, but there have so far been no reports of any deaths.
The strike on the Iranian primary school in the city of Minab, in which local authorities said around 170 people were killed, including many children, took place in the early hours of Feb. 28, when the United States and Israel launched a series of attacks on Iran.
After the school was hit, disinformation began to spread about the origin of the attack, including claims that the building had been destroyed by an Iranian missile. Israel said it was unaware of any operations in that part of Iran, while the United States denied targeting civilians.
According to investigations by leading international media outlets, which cited an internal Pentagon report, the United States was in fact responsible for the strike, and the school was hit by a Tomahawk missile.
Fact-checked:
It is not true that a pilot named Tyler Jaggers was killed in an attack against a U.S. military base in Saudi Arabia. A person of that name was indeed killed in March 2026 but he served in the Coast Guard and was injured in a rescue operation off the coast of Washington. The photos used in the posts show the inscription “Coast Guard” on the person’s uniform.
Svilen Oprikov contributed to work on this fact-check.
