F-16 Fleet Reports

Air force F-16 attrition

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Data

This graph shows the number of F-16 aircraft lost through attrition (i.e. aircraft written off after being involved in a mishap) for every air force operating the Fighting Falcon. It includes aircraft lost due to in-flight and ground mishaps, natural disasters and any other cause of aircraft crashes or losses. Although we strive to make this graph as accurate as possible, we are aware that our attrition data is incomplete; in particular, we lack data on some early crashes, and on Israeli, Egyptian and Turkish air force attrition.

Disclaimer: This report is generated in real-time from our F-16 Aircraft Database. We strive to keep our database up-to-date and complete, nevertheless for some countries data is hard to verify (e.g. accuracy for the Middle East is only 90%). Please contact us if you have any questions or feedback.

Horizontal Axis: Air forces operating the F-16
Vertical Axis: Number of F-16 aircraft
Series: The bars represent the number of aircraft lost for each airforce

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Analysis

Chile, the youngest F-16 operator, is the only country which hasn't suffered any attrition.

Two factors determine the number of aircraft lost in operational service. First, the size of the fleet: the more aircraft an air force operates, the more aircraft can be expected statistically to be lost to attrition. Second, the longer a particular aircraft type has been in active service with a particular air force, the longer F-16 losses can accumulate and the higher the absoute number of F-16 losses will be. These two factors will be clarified in the next graphs. This analysis purely focuses on the absolute number of F-16 losses for each air force.

As the largest F-16 operator by far, the United States Air Force also lost the largest number of aircraft - 321 F-16s at the time of writing. Not only does he US Air Force have the largest active fleet (50% of all F-16s are operated by the USAF), it was also he first air force to start F-16 operations in 1979.

Next come the other long-term F-16 operators: the Netherlands, Belgium, Israel, Turkey, Egypt, Norway, South Korea, Greece and Denmark. Not only have these air forces been operating F-16s since the early 80s, they also operate large fleets. The Royal Netherlands Air Force and Belgian Air Force have particularily high attrition numbers, with 36 and 33 aircraft losses respectively. The RNlAF and BAF have been operating F-16s since 1979 and many of these losses occured in the early years. For both airforces, the F-16 represent a leap in technology: the Netherlands were flying F-104 Starfighters and F-5 Freedom Fighters as their main combat aircraft, while Belgium was operating Mirage 5 and F-104 Starfighter aircraft.

At the lower end of the scale, the Italian Air Force is particulary noteworthy. The AMI leased a small fleet of 34 F-16A/B ADF aircraft from the US Air Force to bridge the gap between their F-104 Starfighter fleet and the new Eurofighter Typhoon, but have suffered from high attrition.

At the time of writing, only six air forces have not suffered any attrition: the Royal Moroccan Air Force is rather obvious (no F-16s delivered yet); the Iranian air force never operated any F-16s (order was cancelled), NASA (which only operated 6 F-16s at its peak), the Polish Air Force, the Royal Air Force of Oman and the Chilean Air Force.

Visitor Comments

sojer, Mar 26, 2017 - 12:10 PM

I think Italy, Poland and Romania suffered no attrition.

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