According to newly released figures from the Pentagon, serious accidents involving US military aircraft increased by 55% between 2020 and 2024.<\/p>\n
These \u201cClass A\u201d accidents\u2014defined as those that destroy an aircraft, cause more than $2.5 million in damage, or result in death or permanent disability\u2014led to 90 fatalities, the destruction of 89 aircraft, and $9.4 billion in losses for the military.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese accident rates are extremely alarming and require immediate action,\u201d said Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, a member of the Armed Services Committee, after the Department of Defense presented her with the data.<\/p>\n
Warren added that the Pentagon\u2019s effort to ensure greater transparency in accident investigations is \u201curgently necessary to save the lives of service members.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the military blog\u00a0The Bunker<\/em>, the causes of these accidents can include, among other factors, collective dereliction of duty by the military-industrial complex, failures at the unit level, pilot incompetence, overloading, or inadequate training; sometimes the cause remains unknown.<\/p>\n The Bunker<\/em>\u00a0commented:<\/p>\n \u201cWarplanes have safety measures and backup systems to help pilots avoid danger. But US military aircraft accidents are often triggered by a \u2018perfect storm\u2019 where several things must go wrong simultaneously or in a sequential chain for disaster to occur. Therefore, unfortunately, there are an infinite number of causes.\u201d<\/p>\n However, a relationship exists between accidents and training, flight hours, and spare parts; accidents tend to increase when these three elements decrease.<\/p>\n For example, as\u00a0The Bunker<\/em>\u00a0recently noted, the average number of hours Air Force fighter pilots flew each month was 16 in the 1990s, dropped to 10 in the mid-2010s, and is now approximately 5. It appears that pilots with fewer flight hours are involved in more accidents.<\/p>\n The Pentagon also has a tendency to blame pilots for accidents. Beyond this, calls for more funding for better training, increased flight hours, and more spare parts are a recurring narrative from the Pentagon following these incidents.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" According to newly released figures from the Pentagon, serious accidents involving US military aircraft increased by 55% between 2020 and 2024. These \u201cClass A\u201d accidents\u2014defined as those that destroy an aircraft, cause more than $2.5 million in damage, or result in death or permanent disability\u2014led to 90 fatalities, the destruction of 89 aircraft, and $9.4 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12376,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[176],"tags":[14491,14487,6661,14486,5888,14490,14488,6701,823,14489,2253,14485],"class_list":["post-12375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america","tag-accident-investigation","tag-armed-services-committee","tag-aviation-safety","tag-class-a-mishaps","tag-elizabeth-warren","tag-flight-hours","tag-military-readiness","tag-military-spending","tag-pentagon","tag-pilot-training","tag-us-air-force","tag-us-military-aircraft-accidents"],"yoast_head":"\n