Global Air Forces Lost 148 Aircraft in the First Half of 2026, GMN Data Shows
GlobalMilitary.net tracking recorded 114 loss events destroying 148 military aircraft between January and June 2026. Iran accounted for 61 of them, most destroyed on the ground during February-March strikes, ahead of the United States and Russia.
The world's air forces lost 148 aircraft to crashes, shoot-downs and ground destruction in the first six months of 2026, according to GlobalMilitary.net's air force events database, which recorded 114 individual loss events between January 1 and June 30. Half of the total is attributable to a single campaign: the strikes on Iran.
Iran was by far the hardest-hit operator, with 61 aircraft lost. The bulk were destroyed on the ground during the February-March air campaign against Iranian military infrastructure, tracked on GlobalMilitary.net's 2026 Iran Conflict page. March 7 alone saw at least eight F-14 Tomcats destroyed at Isfahan's 8th Tactical Fighter Base, along with three Boeing 747 cargo and tanker aircraft, three Il-76 heavy transports and three An-74s at Mehrabad. Two days later, nine F-7N Airguard fighters were destroyed at Isfahan's Shahid Beheshti airport. Those strikes made March the worst single month of the half-year, with 70 aircraft lost worldwide.
In total, 73 of the 148 losses were linked to the Iran conflict and 24 to the Russia-Ukraine war, leaving 51 aircraft lost outside the two active conflicts — a reminder that routine training and transport flying still claims a steady toll of airframes.
The United States recorded the second-highest total at 26 aircraft. The figure includes combat and operational losses during the Iran campaign as well as accidents at home, among them a mid-air collision between two EA-18G Growlers during an air show rehearsal in May and the deliberate destruction of two MC-130J transports and two MH-6 special-operations helicopters that could not be recovered from forward locations in April.
Russia lost 17 aircraft in the period, the majority over Ukraine but also including an Africa Corps Mi-8 helicopter shot down in Mali in April. Ukraine lost nine. Further down the table, India and Pakistan each lost five aircraft — all in accidents, with trainers and helicopters featuring prominently — followed by South Korea with three.
The figures are based on publicly documented losses recorded in GlobalMilitary.net's events database and should be read as a floor rather than a ceiling: combatant states do not acknowledge all losses, and attrition on the Russian and Ukrainian sides in particular is likely undercounted. The second half of the year has already opened at a similar tempo, with multiple losses logged in the first ten days of July.
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