The United States Air Force is pulling old and nonoperational F-16s out of its airplane graveyard — commonly referred to as “the boneyard” — to send to Ukraine for spare parts.
An Air Force spokesperson confirmed the donated F-16s are coming from the service’s 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona.
The planes in question will be cannibalized for parts that Ukraine can use to keep their European-donated F-16s flying, but the service stressed the American F-16s have been gutted of key parts and couldn’t be used operationally.
“The [Department of the Air Force] has supported the sustainment of European-donated F-16s to Ukraine by providing disused and completely nonoperational F-16s to Ukraine for parts,” the spokesperson said. “These F-16s were retired from active U.S. use and are not flyable. Importantly, they lack critical components such as an engine or radar, and could not be reconstituted for operational use.”
The U.S. State Department in May approved a possible foreign military sale to Ukraine, worth about $310.5 million, to sustain the besieged nation’s F-16s and train its pilots and maintainers on the aircraft.
The sale includes spare parts and various accessories, modifications and upgrades to the jets, ground handling equipment, publications and technical documents, software delivery and support, engineering, technical and logistics support and training for operations, maintenance and sustainment support.
The State Department said the exchanges of parts and training support will help the U.S. accomplish its foreign policy goals and national security objectives “by improving the security of a partner country that is a force for political stability and economic progress in Europe.”
The equipment and training package is aimed at improving Ukraine’s ability to improve its national defenses by ensuring sure its pilots remain fluent on the aircraft, the department said. The effort is also geared toward making Ukrainian aviators more interoperable with the U.S. through training tailored by the U.S. Air Force.
Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine has urged its Western allies to send it modern, fourth-generation fighters to modernize its air force and improve its ability to defend itself. When the war began in February 2022, Ukraine had at most 69 MiG-29 Fulcrum and Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker jets.
But the U.S. was initially hesitant to agree to Ukraine’s requests. Top defense officials and some lawmakers said it was unclear whether jets such as the F-16 would provide Ukraine enough of an advantage, and the Pentagon instead focused first on providing other assets such as critical munitions.
Former President Joe Biden in August 2023 cleared the way for F-16s to go to Ukraine, with the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Belgium either having already donated the jets or pledging to do so.
Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, head of U.S. European Command, told lawmakers in a hearing last month that F-16s have helped Ukraine shore up its defenses and that more jets are on the way.
“There are more F-16s prepared to be deployed in [Ukraine],” Cavoli told the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 3. “There are more pilots in the training pipeline. … The planes are active and they fly every day. They’ve defeated a large number of cruise missile threats and they’ve delivered an awful lot of offensive attacks as well” along Ukraine’s eastern front.
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.
