Push to retire A-10 fighters criticized in GAO report

Military officials made mistakes and overlooked facts in their push to retire the A-10 fighter jet, a report released Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office says.

Among the findings in the 69-page report: the Air Force lacks a replacement aircraft to perform combat search and rescue missions; it has not adequately identified how mothballing the A-10 fleet could impact military capabilities; and the timeline for grounding the fleet of jets comes before its replacement, the F-35, would fully be in service.

The A-10 is a mainstay of operations at Tucson’s Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

The GAO report reviewed the 2017 Department of Defense budget proposal and found the Air Force has plans to replace A-10 squadrons one for one with F-35 squadrons in order to mitigate the drop in fighter capacity.

“However, Air Force documentation reveals that the loss of A-10 squadrons will outpace the F-35 squadron gain, with eight A-10 squadrons divested by the end of the 5-year budget plan but only six F-35 squadrons stood up,” the report states.

The mothballing of the A-10 fleet would cause a sizable decrease in Air Force close air support capability, it said.

“Senior DOD leaders have stated that the A-10 is the Air Force’s best CAS aircraft,” the report states. “The CAS experts convened by the Air Force in 2015 concluded that A-10 divestiture creates a gap because the Air Force is losing a high-capacity and cost-efficient ability to kill armor, moving and close proximity targets in low weather conditions.”

Amid the move to retire the A-10, D-M in April was pegged as a finalist to house F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft.

In December 2015, the Air Force also announced D-M as a potential site for expanded remotely piloted aircraft missions.

Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the A-10 is vital to fighting ISIS as well as boosting NATO’s efforts in Eastern Europe to deter Russian aggression.

“The nonpartisan GAO has concluded what we’ve been arguing for years: There is no justification for the Air Force to prematurely retire the A-10 fleet, and doing so could leave the military with a serious capability gap our military needs to confront complex security challenges around the world,” McCain’s statement said.

His Republican rival in the Republican primary, former state Sen. Kelli Ward, supports keeping the A-10 flying. She noted reports that the military has become so desperate to keep the aging A-10s flying that it has had to strip aircraft in museums for replacement parts.

“The best deal in the Air Force is the A-10. It’s deadly, efficient, accurate, and ready-made to defeat ISIS. As a military wife whose husband has served in the Air Force for 32 years, I support our military and our A-10, 100 percent,” Ward said.

A former A-10 pilot, Rep. Martha McSally has offered an amendment to appropriations legislation to provide $100 million for new wings for the A-10.

“Today’s report confirms what I’ve argued continuously — the Air Force’s flawed and shifting plan to prematurely retire the A-10 is dangerous and would put lives in danger,” said McSally in her statement.

Earlier this year, McSally said she wants a fly-off between the A-10 and the F-35 and said any retirement should wait until the test occurs.

Both the House and the Senate have passed the National Defense Authorization Act that prevents the retirement of the A-10 fleet for next fiscal year.

The GAO report recommends that the Air Force “fully identify mission gaps, risks, and mitigation strategies, and also develop high-quality, reliable cost estimates of the savings from divestment before again proposing to divest its A-10 fleet.”