The Air Force has conducted more than 50 surveillance missions around the U.S. southern border with crewed and uncrewed aircraft, as the Pentagon seeks to gather intelligence on foreign cartels, drug and human trafficking, and illegal migration.
The U.S. Air Force has been flying U-2 Dragon Lady spy planes along the southern border, Air Force and defense officials disclosed.
The U.S. military is carrying out intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions along the southern border and off the coast of Mexico using U.S. Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint and U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft as part of the Pentagon’s effort to secure the southern border ...
The U.S. has been flying MQ-9 drones over Gaza as Washington is trying to gather information about American and other hostages held by Hamas and other militants there. The flights, which the Pentagon acknowledged Nov. 3, began after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that ...
The 55th Operations Group flies RC-135 jets on intelligence-gathering missions all over the world with a small fleet of just 28 aircraft.
The Air Force’s 55th Operations Group is standing up a small detachment at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska to help launch and recover jets from the RC-135 family of intelligence and reconnaissance platforms as they conduct operations and exercises over the Indo-Pacific.
A Chinese fighter jet conducted an “unnecessarily aggressive” maneuver in front of a U.S. Air Force RC-135 last week, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command announced May 30, releasing footage of the incident. The intercept, which took place May 26, happened over the South China Sea in international airspace.
U.S. officials expressed growing concern April 18 about the lack of communication between the Chinese and American militaries in light of increasingly aggressive actions by Beijing. It has now been nearly five months since Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III last spoke to his ...
The Air Force has ordered safety inspections for its entire fleets of KC-135 tankers, RC-135 reconnaissance planes, and WC-135 “nuke sniffers” over poorly-made tail pins, preventing aircraft from flying until they are cleared. The Time Compliance Technical Order (TCTO), issued Feb. 14, affects hundreds of aircraft. ...
The Pentagon is tracking what it says is a Chinese surveillance balloon over the continental United States, it said Feb. 2. The U.S. military scrambled two Air Force F-22 Raptors from Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. on Feb. 1 in response to the incident, Air ...
Despite a public plea by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III to open up lines of communications following a dangerous near-miss between American and Chinese jets last month, the U.S. and China have not held top-level military conversations recently, and there are no set ...
The American and Chinese militaries are trading blame after a close call between two warplanes over the South China Sea on Dec. 21, as a Chinese fighter jet came within a few yards of a U.S. Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint over the South China ...