Hundreds of Key U.S. Warplanes Aren’t Ready for Combat, Government Report Finds
Kyle Mizokami - Yesterday 12:24 PM
A new study highlights a distressing lack of mission-capable aircraft in the Pentagon’s inventory.
Conducted by the U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO), the study tracks readiness rates for vital American aircraft, including the F-22 Raptor.
Since 2015, aircraft readiness rates across all fleets fell, sometimes by double digits, leaving hundreds of planes incapable of carrying out their assigned missions.
The Pentagon’s vast fleet of military aircraft is a lot less powerful than it looks.
Or at least that’s the inescapable conclusion from a new report conducted by the U.S. General Accountability Office, a watchdog federal agency established to audit the rest of the federal government, including the Department of Defense. Of 186 F-22 Raptor fighters, only about 93 are ready to fly missions at any particular time, the report found. The numbers are equally dismal for other aircraft, including the Navy’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. In some aircraft fleets, including the B-1B bomber, there are more mission-ready planes than unready ones.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/hundreds-of-key-u-s-warplanes-aren-t-ready-for-combat-government-report-finds/ar-AAYXTUN?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=9173bc7dc04f4fbd819f5a2a5baa9ae9
