Damaged KC-135 Tankers: How Many Are Still Being Rebuilt?

The U.S. Air Force still has at least two KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refuelling aircraft undergoing extensive rebuilding at its depots more than seven months after they were damaged during Operation Epic Fury, the American military campaign against Iran. The commander of Air Force Materiel Command, Lieutenant General Linda Hurry, disclosed the figure on October 21 at an event hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, stating that the two tankers had “received much more significant damage” than others repaired in theatre, although she could not give exact numbers for either group. The disclosure highlights how a handful of battle damaged tankers can tie up depot capacity for the better part of a year, with even the newest airframes in the KC-135 fleet now more than six decades old.

Hurry was answering a question from Air & Space Forces Magazine, which has tallied at least six KC-135s damaged during the campaign. She had earlier described an aircraft battle damage repair team that her command sent to the Middle East, which returned some tankers to operations in theatre and patched others only enough for a single authorised ferry flight home to a depot. Of one aircraft, she said: “One had many, many, many holes in the side, and they were able to patch it up and get the authority to have it with a one-time flight back to the depot.” Five of the tankers were hit when Iranian missiles struck Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia in early March, in the same attack that cost Saudi Arabia one of its two RE-3 surveillance aircraft. President Donald Trump claimed on March 14 that four of those five had suffered “virtually no damage” and had returned to service.

The sixth survived a midair collision over western Iraq on March 12 that destroyed a second KC-135, call sign ZEUS 95, and killed all six Airmen aboard in the first loss of a U.S. Air Force tanker in 13 years. The surviving KC-135R, serial 63-8017, landed at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel with half of its tail sheared off, and was fitted with a donor tail before reaching Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma on August 3, where the service stated that programmed depot maintenance averages 155 days and “may be extended based on findings.” Air Force Chief of Staff General Kenneth Wilsbach had told senators on June 9 that the most heavily damaged aircraft “will take a year or two to get fixed.” Materiel Command had meanwhile moved depot teams forward to RAF Mildenhall in the United Kingdom during the spring, where Air Mobility Command credited them with repairing 30 damaged refuelling booms rather than shipping them home.

The strain falls on a fleet that the Government Accountability Office counted at 373 KC-135s and 103 newer KC-46A Pegasus tankers as of March 2026. The same study found tanker availability “persistently below the standards that the Air Force established for the fleet,” with maintainers citing parts shortages as the key cause. Hurry stated at the same event that the Air Force Sustainment Center, which runs the depots at Tinker, Robins and Hill, is about 2,600 billets short, and that a sustainment framework for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones meant to fly alongside the service’s manned fighter fleet is only now taking shape. The KC-135 entered service in 1957, and the Air Force has requested 15 more KC-46 tankers in its budget for the 2027 fiscal year.