Belgian Air Force to withdraw a first F-16 from service this summer

The F-16 registered FA-95 will be withdrawn from service next summer

The Belgian Army’s Air Component will soon enter the era of the F-35 with the arrival of the first example this year in the United States at the American base in Luke near Phoenix, Arizona, for the initial training of Belgian pilots and mechanics. Its construction began in the summer of 2022.

This means that the F-16 fleet will gradually be phased out. The F-16 registered FA-95 will be the first one to be retired from service next summer. It will then reach 8,000 flight hours. The others will follow until 2028.

In December 2021, Minister Ludivine Dedonder gave an update on the future of the F-16 fleet to the deputies of the National Defence Committee. Belgium does not intend to sell its F-16s after their withdrawal because the country will have drawn its fleet to the maximum.

The Air Component had acquired the F-16s in two batches: the so-called Initial Buy of 116 F-16s and the Follow-on Buy of 44 F-16s. FA-95 was delivered in 1985. In 2018, the Belgian Defence had only 54 aircraft left.

In October 2018, an F-16 was destroyed at the Florennes base after a technician did accidentally shoot it during maintenance, and two other aircraft were damaged. In September 2019, an F-16 crashed in Brittany in France during a training flight. In July 2021, an F-16 crashed into buildings at Leeuwarden Air Base in the Netherlands during the start-up procedure.

From the end of 2023 to the end of 2028, an F-35 conversion programme will be implemented at Luke Air Force Base in the United States.

Source: Defence Belgium