The Air Force failed to fully estimate the cost ramifications in its justification for retiring its fleet of A-10 aircraft, undermining the service’s case, the Government Accountability Office said.
Last year, the Air Force proposed getting rid of the fleet of ground-attack aircraft in order to cut costs, riling supporters who say the A-10 is vital to the close-air support role that has seen heavy use in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Air Force said it was a difficult decision, but it had to prioritize multirole aircraft such as the F-35 over single-role planes like the A-10 as the service faces budget cuts.
But the GAO, in its Thursday report, said “the Air Force has not fully assessed the cost savings associated with the A-10 divestment or its alternatives.”
The Air Force estimated that getting rid of the fleet would save $4.2 billion over five years, a figure that could either overstate or understate the savings, GAO said.
“For example, A-10 divestment could increase the operational tempo of remaining [close-air support]-capable aircraft, which could increase costs related to extending the service lives [of those other aircraft],” GAO said. “Alternatively, savings could be greater than $4.2 billion because the Air Force estimate did not include the cost for things such as software upgrades or potential structural enhancements that it could incur if it were to keep the A-10.”
Without cost estimates that don’t take these issues into account, “the Air Force does not have a complete picture of the savings it would generate by divesting the A-10 and does not have a reliable basis from which to develop and consider alternatives to achieve budget targets or assess impact on other missions such as air superiority or global strike.”
Congressional supporters such as Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., supported GAO’s findings.
“The GAO findings reinforce what soldiers, special operators, and joint terminal attack controllers have said from the beginning: the premature divestment of the A-10 will create a close-air support capability gap, increase the risk to our ground troops, and result in unnecessary American casualties,” she said in a statement, according to The Hill.
“If the Air Force decides to ignore the clear and consistent will of the overwhelming majority of soldiers, special operators, and JTACs, I will continue to stand with them in opposition to the Air Force’s plans to prematurely divest the A-10,” she said.
In the Air Force response, Secretary Deborah Lee James said GAO did not fully incorporate “the potential risks to air superiority and global strike that could be created by the added cost of retaining the A-10 fleet.”
She quoted the Pentagon’s Office of Capabilities Assessment and Program Evaluation, which said in January that “the early retirement of the A-10 fighter is the most effective alternative to meet near-term needs and enables the Air Force to provide the core capabilities of air superiority and global strike into the future.”
