Military Aircraft Crashes in 2026 Reach 83 Logged Accidents Across 30 Countries

Three fatal accidents in the second half of October closed the month for military aviation: a French Air and Space Force Mirage 2000D on 20 October, two Philippine Air Force SF-260 trainers on 23 October and an Italian military CH-47 Chinook in Bosnia and Herzegovina on 29 October. They bring GlobalMilitary.net's log of air force events to 83 crash records for 2026, covering 87 airframes lost in 30 countries between 1 January and 2 November.

• 20 October — A Mirage 2000D crashed near Rogéville at night while returning to Nancy-Ochey air base; both crew members were killed, the French Ministry of the Armed Forces announced on 21 October. GMN's record of the accident is one of four French crash records this year.
• 23 October — Two SF-260 trainers went down inside Fernando Air Base, Lipa City, during a formation flyby training flight; four pilots were killed, the Philippine Air Force said, and the remaining SF-260s were grounded pending the investigation, the Daily Tribune reported. It was the second fatal Philippine SF-260 accident of 2026 after one on 20 May, and the event accounts for two of the year's 87 airframes.
• 29 October — An Italian CH-47 Chinook crashed in the Gorice area near Brčko during routine training, EUFOR said in a press release, which reported four personnel killed, two of the Italian Armed Forces and two of the Italian Military Red Cross, and eleven injured. The crash is the latest entry in the 2026 log.

The United States accounts for the largest share of the year's records, 19 of the 83 and 21 of the 87 airframes, according to GMN data. That position reflects the size of the US fleet and the fact that the US services announce their accidents publicly, and it coincides with Naval Safety Command figures, reported by USNI News, that put the US Navy's fiscal year 2026 Class A aviation mishap count at a decade high. Over the same window, GMN's log held 80 records and 80 airframes in 2025, 89 and 91 in 2024, 71 and 74 in 2023, and 65 and 66 in 2022.

Countries, Services and Aircraft Types

Behind the United States come Russia with 8 records and 9 airframes, then India, Pakistan and Ukraine with 6 records each, France with 4, South Korea with 3 and the Philippines with 2 records and 3 airframes. Bolivia, the United Kingdom, Greece, Iran, Nigeria, Turkey and Taiwan have 2 records each. By region, Asia leads with 28 records and 29 airframes, followed by Europe with 25 and 26, the Americas with 22 and 24, and Africa with 8.

Among the US services, the Air Force accounts for 9 records and 10 airframes, the Navy for 5 records and 6 airframes, the Marine Corps and the Army for 2 each, and the Coast Guard for 1. The Navy's entries include the two EA-18G Growlers that collided at the Mountain Home Air Force Base air show on 17 May, and the Growler that went over the side of USS Dwight D. Eisenhower on 28 September after an arresting-wire failure. The Air Force list runs from the B-52H that crashed shortly after takeoff from Edwards Air Force Base on 15 June with eight crew aboard to the T-6 Texan II lost over Gonzales County, Texas, on 22 October in a controlled bailout over unsafe landing-gear indications, from which both pilots ejected safely.

The F-16 is the type with the most crash records in 2026, six, spread across South Korea, Greece, Ukraine, Turkey and two US Air Force losses in September. The Mi-8 family follows with 5 records and the Su-30 with 4; the EA-18G and the SF-260 each have 2 records for 3 airframes, and the T-6 Texan II has 2 records. By category, combat aircraft account for 28 records and 29 airframes, helicopters for 19, trainers for 17 records and 18 airframes, transports for 6, UAVs for 5 records and 6 airframes, bombers for 3, and tankers, electronic-warfare and utility types together for 5 records and 6 airframes.

June was the busiest month with 17 records, followed by July with 11; February and May had 9 each, September and October 8 each, January and August 6 each, March 5 and April 4. Deaths among those aboard are reported in 36 of the 83 records. Twelve of the records are non-combat losses inside active wars: 8 in the Russia-Ukraine war and 4 in the 2026 Iran conflict, among them the US KC-135R lost in a mid-air collision with another KC-135 over western Iraq on 12 March.

The US Navy's Official Count

The Naval Safety Command figures reported by USNI News on 27 October, and by AVweb the following day, cover fiscal year 2026, from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2026. In that period the Navy recorded 16 Class A aviation mishaps, the most since the 17 of fiscal year 2014: 2 involving unmanned aircraft and 14 manned, of which 11 occurred in flight and 3 on the ground. The command also counted 11 Class A afloat mishaps, likewise a decade high, and 6 Marine Corps aviation mishaps, one more than in fiscal year 2025.

These figures are not the same measure as GMN's 5 Navy records and 6 airframes. A Class A mishap is defined by a threshold of at least $2.5 million in damage, a destroyed aircraft, a death or a permanent total disability, so the official count includes aircraft that were damaged but not lost and events that happened on the ground, while GMN's crash log counts airframes written off. The windows differ as well, a fiscal year against a calendar year to date. The two series cannot be set against each other one for one.

What the Log Measures

A crash in GMN's log is an accident or mishap that cost an airframe. Combat losses, whether aircraft shot down or destroyed on the ground, are logged under separate event types and are excluded from the 83; the 12 wartime entries above are accidents that happened in a war zone, not losses to enemy action. The log records what is publicly reported, and an absence from it is not proof that no accident occurred: air forces that publish little, such as those of China and North Korea, and Russia's non-public losses, are under-represented by construction. The counts are of records and airframes as GMN has logged them, not a complete global census, and the year-on-year comparisons above set log counts against log counts for the same window, not against any official statistic. The 2026 figure stands at 83 records with the rest of the year still to run.