Pentagon Acknowledges Practice of ‘Cannibalizing’ B-52 Bombers Due to Parts Shortage
A US Air Force B-52 bomber flies over Training Range in Pabrade during a military exercise ‘Iron Wolf 2016’ some 60km.(38 miles) north of the capital Vilnius, Lithuania, Thursday, June 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)
An acute shortage of spare parts has reduced the combat readiness of US B-52 bombers, causing a backlog of aircraft at repair facilities and forcing the dismantling of some planes for parts, Gen. Stephen Davis, Commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, said. «We found we had about 17 bombers that were there, essentially because there weren’t enough parts, so they would keep inducting bombers so they could get parts, so they could push bombers out the backside … We had two to three long-term canned birds at every wing, and really the root cause of that was the supply issue, and that we didn’t have enough parts for our airmen,» Davis said at the 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference. He added that the command encountered the massive shortage during his predecessor’s tenure about a year and a half ago, prompting the military to launch a special program to resolve the crisis. Over the past 18 months, the supply of components has increased by 50%, the number of bombers sitting idle at repair facilities has been reduced to 11, and the practice of stripping operational aircraft for parts at bases has been virtually eliminated. According to official US Air Force data, there are currently 76 B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers in service. Of these, 58 are assigned to active-duty units, while 18 are held in reserve.
