An Air Force Reserve Command C-17 aircrew from McChord AFB, Wash., was flying some Hollywood entertainment industry folks from March ARB, Calif., to Lackland AFB, Tex., and were to take them back and head home. Instead they picked up a specialized Army Burn Center Flight team at Lackland and flew them to Hawaii, where they then stood by as one of four C-17s on call to transport to the Army’s Burn Center in San Antonio eight sailors injured in a steam line accident aboard the USS Frank Cable in Guam. A Hickam AFB, Hawaii-based C-17 had picked up the sailors, six of whom had critical burns, at Guam, flying them the 6,000 miles back to Hickam, where medical personnel took them to Tripler Army Medical Hospital to stabilize them for the trip to Texas.
The Pentagon’s fiscal 2026 defense budget, submitted to Congress last week, accelerates the downsizing of the U.S. Air Force. It proposes divesting 340 aircraft, while only acquiring 76. These cuts risk the Air Force’s ability to prevail.
