US lost 81 aircraft worth $3.3 billion in Iran war, Congressional Research Service says
A revised Congressional Research Service assessment puts US aircraft losses and damage in Operation Epic Fury at 81 airframes worth as much as $3.3 billion — nearly double its May tally.
The United States has had 81 military aircraft lost or damaged since operations against Iran began on February 28, costing as much as $3.3 billion, according to a revised Congressional Research Service assessment titled “US Aircraft Combat Damage in Operation Epic Fury: Considerations for Congress”, the New York Post reported.
The new tally, revised on October 5, nearly doubles the 42 aircraft listed in the service’s May report — though it does not mean 39 more aircraft were hit since May, as the accounting evolved with new incidents and damage assessments entering the public record, Army Recognition noted.
The biggest components are 45 MQ-9 Reaper drones, worth $30–50 million each, and 12 F-15E Strike Eagles worth over $30 million apiece. Three F-15s were shot down in friendly fire over Kuwait on March 2, another over Iran the next month, and eight more were damaged in Iranian airstrikes on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan on September 9–10 — those have since returned to service, NDTV reported.
Other entries: one F-35A damaged on March 19 (worth over $92 million), one $270 million E-3 Sentry, two A-10s, seven KC-135 tankers, two MC-130Js, one HH-60W, one MQ-4C Triton, three MQ-1-series drones, and Army helicopters including one AH-64, four AH-6s and one MH-60.
The tally mixes destroyed and repairable airframes with friendly-fire incidents and accidents, and remains subject to revision. Reaper losses have cut the deployable fleet to about 135 drones against an Air Force requirement of at least 189.
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