A B-52 Stratofortress assigned to the 307th Bomb Wing receives fuel from a KC-135 Stratotanker assigned to the 185th Air Refueling Wing, Iowa National Guard, over the Midwest, June 3, 2026. Aerial refueling capabilities allow tanker aircraft to extend the mission capabilities of other aircraft without need for landing. (Alexa Prieto-Velasco/U.S. Air National Guard)
The Air Force faced questions from a government watchdog agency and a Senate panel about its in-flight refueling aircraft.
The Air Force has not accurately recorded the mission-ready status of in-flight refueling aircraft, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office, released Wednesday.
“The tanker fleet did not meet the Air Force’s availability and capability standards from fiscal year 2019 through fiscal year 2025,” the GAO report said.
The Air Force has 470 refueling tankers, according to GAO. About 370 are KC-135 Stratotankers and the rest are the KC-46 Pegasus.
The report says the rate of refuelers reported as fully mission-capable “decreased substantially” during the seven-year period covered by the report.
“The critical fleet has consistently fallen below availability and capability standards in recent years,” the GAO said.
Problems include not enough spare parts, inadequate training for maintenance crews, insufficient hangar space for the KC-46 and availability of the right technical manuals.
“The Air Force needs a healthy fleet of refueling tankers to support missions around the globe,” said Diana Maurer, a director in GAO’s defense capabilities and management team. The issues are discussed further in a GAO video accompanying the report.
“Tankers can actually perform other missions,” Maurer said.
The Air Force data include not only refueling, but moving personnel, cargo and medical evacuation missions.
“Only tankers can perform the refueling mission,” Maurer said.
According to the GAO report, Air Force officials said the performance reports exclude aircraft not rated as “fully mission capable,” even though they may be able to meet the refueling mission but not other missions.
“Without metrics and standards focused on the aerial refueling mission specifically, the Air Force risks not having a clear understanding of the fleet’s ability to meet key operational requirements,” the GAO said.
The GAO report was released a day after Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told Congress the Air Force believes it has fixed a long-running problem with the KC-46.
Meink told a Senate defense appropriations subcommittee that the remote vision system in the KC-46, which allows an operator to deploy the refueling boom, has been fixed. On the KC-135, boom operators face the tail of the plane and can see the boom deploying to the aircraft it is trying to refuel.
The KC-46 positions the boom operator facing forward and employs a camera system to position the refueling probe. Problems with the system date back five years, Meink said. The boom system has also had issues with leaks.
“I think the good news is that we believe we’ve fixed and have tested the new 2.0 vision system and that we should start rolling that into the production line in ‘28,” Meink said.
The Air Force has received 100 of 188 KC-46 ordered from Boeing and is considering plans to purchase another 75. Boeing has lost $7 billion on the contract, according to Reuters. Fixing the problem in all Air Force KC-46 aircraft would take seven years.
