Another Battle Damaged KC-135 Tanker Seen Passing Through RAF Mildenhall
In
another visible sign of the damage inflicted by Iran during the now-paused war, a
KC-135 Stratotanker was spotted over the weekend at RAF Mildenhall in the United Kingdom peppered with temporary shrapnel damage repairs. The aircraft is at least the
second to transit through the installation with damage from the war.
The photographs, from aviation photographer Andrew McKelvey, show the KC-135 heavily speckled with shrapnel damage to the tail, its vertical stabilizer as well as its flaps. It is also missing its refueling boom entirely.
It is unclear where this jet was struck. There were
five tankers reportedly damaged in the Iranian long-range strike on Prince Sultan Air Base (PSAB) in Saudi Arabia on March 14. However,
data from FlightRadar24 shows that the jet was taking off and arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv Israel on the day before and after the attack on PSAB. In addition, that data shows it was still flying missions after that incident, which seems highly unlikely. The KC-135 could have been hit somewhere else or the data is wrong. We just don’t know at the moment.
“It’s still here and parked on the visitors ramps on the north side of the base,” McKelvey told us Monday morning EDT.
This jet, tail number 63-8028, belongs to the Alaska Air National Guard’s 168th Wing. It arrived at Mildenhall from Ben Gurion on Saturday, according to data from FlightRadar24.
As we have reported in the past, dozens of U.S. Air Force refueling aircraft now deployed to Ben Gurion Airport are expected to stay in Israel at least until the end of this year, Israel’s
N12 News reported on X.
“The presence of the aircraft—not the U.S. military—is causing significant operational difficulties at Ben Gurion Airport, as they are parked almost everywhere possible at the port,” the outlet added.
As noted earlier, this is at least the second KC-135 that has visited Mildenhall sporting shrapnel damage and temporary repairs. Last month, McKelvey shared images with us of a KC-135 from the Ohio Air National Guard’s (OANG) 121st Air Refueling Wing covered from nose to tail with these repairs. However, additional ones could have transited to Mildenhall or other installations in Europe before flying to Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma for far more comprehensive repair work. Tinker is home to the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex, which performs programmed depot maintenance and modifications on KC-46, KC-135, B-1B, B-52, E-3 and Navy E-6 aircraft.......