Belgian F-16s return from mission against ISIS

Belgian F-16s return from Jordan

On Friday 1 October, the four Belgian F-16s deployed in Jordan landed at Kleine-Brogel airbase. This is a one-year mission (01 Oct 2020 – 30 Sept 2021) that has just ended.

A total of 130 troops were deployed to Jordan. The F-16s flew about 250 hours/month, two sorties a day, six days a week.

A total of 293 missions were carried out with a total of 2,974 flight hours. The missions required the use of weapons on 29 occasions (all in Iraq) and some 1,590 INTEL information collections.

These missions were distributed as follows:

– Combat Air Patrol (CAP) 75.6
– Close Air Support (CAS) 12.6
– Reconnaissance (RECCE) 11.8
– Air Interdiction (AI) – 1%.

Aera of Operations :

– Iraq 85
– NE-Syria 15%.

These missions, where daily cooperation in operations requires continuous training at the international level, are facilitated by technical interoperability.

These missions in the fight against ISIS were carried out in accordance with the political mandate and proportional to the capacities of the Belgian Air Component.