Airstrikes may have destroyed Iran's last F-14s, ending a long, strange saga

The final catapult launch of the F-14 Tomcat fighter aircraft aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt on July 28, 2006. The U.S. military retired the plane that year.

The F-14 was made famous in Top Gun. The U.S. sold the planes to Iran in the 1970s, only for the two countries to become enemies. Iran kept its F-14s flying for decades in the face of U.S. sanctions.

(Image credit: U.S. Navy)