Stuck fuel probe caused trio of mishaps in Air Force’s newest tanker
All three suffered “nozzle binding” events when the tanker’s fuel probes got stuck in fighter planes during refueling.
Matt White
Published Sep 8, 2025 5:05 PM EDT
A KC-46A Pegasus connects with an F-15 Strike Eagle for an aerial refueling test over California in 2018. Courtesy photo by John D. Parker/Boeing.
Three of the Air Force’s newest and most advanced refueling tankers sustained a combined $22 million in damage in similar airborne accidents when refueling probes became stuck in fighter jets during refueling.
One of the accidents in 2024 was so violent that the plane’s refueling boom broke off the jumbo jet and fell into a remote California forest.
All three mishaps occurred on KC-46 Pegasus refuelers — the Air Force’s newest tanker — and all three were caused, investigation boards found, by similiar mistakes: each of the planes’s three boom operators made errors as they connected up to a trailing fighter plane, mistakes that were compounded by flying errors made by the pilots on the mission and weaknesses in the design of the controls that operators use to fly the boom.
The Air Force released investigation reports for the three mishaps last week. Two of the accidents occurred in 2022, while the most recent was in 2024.
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