The Pentagon is providing decommissioned Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters to Ukraine as a source of spare parts to sustain Kyiv’s fleet of the single-engined jets.
The US Air Force (USAF) confirmed to FlightGlobal on 1 May that it is shipping “disused and completely non-operational F-16s to Ukraine”, which will be used to sustain the fighters provided to the nation by allies in Europe.
“These F-16s were retired from active US use and are not flyable,” the air force tells FlightGlobal. “Importantly, they lack critical components such as an engine or radar, and could not be reconstituted for operational use.”
Images circulating on social media show what appears to be a shrink-wrapped F-16 fuselage being loaded onto an Antonov An-124 heavy cargo airlifter at a desert airfield. The F-16 has no wings, nose cone or vertical stabiliser.
The USAF stores its decommissioned aircraft in such a state at the aircraft “Boneyard” at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona.
Open source flight tracking data shows that an An-124, registration UR-82027, landed at Tucson on 25 April and departed the next day, headed for Rzeszow-Jasionka airport in Poland. That facility has served as a logistics hub for NATO countries supplying Ukraine with war materiel.
The USAF declines to specify how many F-16s or of which Block version are being provided to Ukraine.
Shortly after the images appeared,, Washington on 2 May approved a $310 million F-16 sustainment package for Ukraine covering aircraft modifications and upgrades; personnel training related to operation, maintenance, and sustainment support; spare parts and consumables.
Last December, Washington approved a $266 million F-16 support package for the beleaguered country that included maintenance support, spare parts and radio encryption devices.
Various NATO members have pledged nearly 100 F-16s to Kyiv, including 42 jets from the Netherlands, 19 from Denmark and 30 from Belgium. Norway initially committed two F-16s from its fleet but later upped the number to six.
Only a small portion of those have been handed over, with the first examples entering service with the Ukrainian air force in mid-2024.
A separate batch of Dassault Aviation Mirage 2000-5 fighters donated by France arrived in Ukraine in February.
Story updated 2 May to include details of the latest F-16 support package approved by US regulators.
