A US Air Force pilot has described “free-falling” to the ground with a damaged parachute after his plane was shot down over Iran, leading to a dangerous rescue operation.

“At one point, when I looked up and saw no parachute, that was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen,” said the pilot, who was not named in the interview with CBS News’s 60 Minutes programme.

The segment, which aired on Sunday, is the first time one of the pilots involved in the April incident over Iran has spoken out about their ordeal.

The two US troops ejected from the damaged plane, were separated, and had to evade Iranian forces while they awaited rescue from US special forces.

“Free-falling is a good way to put it,” said the US airman, who was identified by the name Bravo during the CBS segment.

“I wasn’t focused on the speed at which I was falling. I was instead focused on trying to correct the problems that were in front of me and doing anything I could to unfurl or pull pieces of the parachute loose,” he said.

He called his survival “a miracle”, although he broke his back, shoulder and arm. The speed at which he hit the ground was “somewhere between 70 and 100mph (113 to 161km/h)”.

The other US airman who was shot down, identified as Alpha, declined to be interviewed by CBS.