The Warthog’s exit from South Korea marks a milestone in a retirement Congress slowed but didn’t stop — even as the Air Force just extended some A-10s to 2030 after they flew real combat missions this year.
The Air Force has completed its withdrawal of A-10 attack jets from South Korea, advancing a broader Warthog retirement that Congress has slowed but not stopped.
The drawdown’s clearest milestone unfolded at Osan Air Base, where the 25th Fighter Squadron began retiring its 24 A-10s in January 2025 and aimed to finish by the end of that fiscal year. The squadron was inactivated June 13, 2025, marking the end of A-10 service on the Korean Peninsula, according to Newsweek. The Air Force has filled the gap with upgraded F-16 Fighting Falcons — some permanently transferred to Osan from Misawa Air Base in Japan in late June 2025 — alongside F-35 Lightning IIs and F-15EX Eagle IIs operating elsewhere in the Pacific theater.
“These aircraft bring unparalleled multi-role versatility, advanced stealth features, and superior operational range, positioning us to effectively counter modern threats and support our regional allies,” Lt. Gen. David Iverson, commander of Seventh Air Force and deputy commander of U.S. Forces Korea, said in a Nov. 12, 2024, Air Force release announcing the transition. “The advancement of our F-16 upgrades and innovation through our ongoing super squadron test at Osan (AB) show our dedication to evolving and adapting our forces to meet the demands of the 21st century,” Iverson said.
Congress, meanwhile, did not let the broader fleet shrink without limits. The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026 bars the Air Force from cutting the A-10’s total aircraft inventory below 103 through Sept. 30, 2026, and requires the service to keep at least 93 A-10s designated as primary mission aircraft until Oct. 1, 2026, according to the enrolled bill. Lawmakers’ compromise still let the Air Force retire 59 Warthogs this fiscal year — about a third of the 162 the service had in its inventory at the start of fiscal 2026 — even though the Air Force had asked to retire the entire remaining fleet, according to the House Armed Services Committee’s joint explanatory statement. The same provision required a briefing, due by March 31, 2026, detailing tail numbers, locations, divestment dates, and replacement plans for retiring all A-10s before fiscal 2029.
That 2029 target shifted again on April 20, 2026, when Secretary of the Air Force Troy E. Meink announced on the social platform X: “In consultation with [Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth], we will EXTEND the A-10 ‘Warthog’ platform to 2030,” according to Defense News. Meink said the move “preserves combat power as the Defense Industrial Base works to increase combat aircraft production.” An Air Force spokesperson told Defense News that one active-duty squadron at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia and an Air Force Reserve squadron at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri would now fly A-10s through 2030, while a second Moody squadron would be extended only to 2029. Each of the three squadrons is expected to retain 18 aircraft, for a total of 54 Warthogs through 2029 and 36 in 2030, Defense News reported.
The extension followed a stretch of heavier A-10 use during Operation Epic Fury in Iran, where Warthogs flew close air support for maritime operations in the Strait of Hormuz and took part in a search-and-rescue mission that recovered two downed F-15E airmen — a mission in which one A-10 crashed and its pilot was rescued, Defense News reported. Hegseth wrote “long live the Warthog” after the extension was announced, according to Defense One. Dan Grazier, a senior fellow and director of the national-security reform program at the Stimson Center, said: “I can only assume that somebody briefed them up about how central the A-10 was to those rescue operations, because there is no other platform that can do the complete sandy package.” Grazier added: “It’s great to see the fleet being extended out until 2030 now, but the next challenge is the Air Force has to get its act together to work on a replacement program for the A-10.”
The retirement has reignited debate in Congress over whether anything can fully replace the A-10’s close air support role. Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee on May 20, 2026, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine: “It’s unacceptable to have a gap, if you have somebody down behind enemy lines like we saw with DUDE 44 Bravo, you have to go get them.” He added: “It’s our duty. We will not have a gap in support of CSAR.” Meink told the same hearing the A-10 “is a great platform, and we keep it around, in many cases, to provide that capability … as we replace it with even more combat-effective aircraft.” Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., pushed back, telling the panel: “We have to have the ability to have somebody sitting around with a GAU-8/A with 1,200 rounds, versus a GAU-22 Alpha on F-35 with 200 rounds,” and “We cannot have a gap in a close air support platform that will be able to kill the enemy that is in that hallway [versus] dropping something from an F-35.”
Air Force and Army officials describe the mission being spread across multiple systems rather than handed to one successor. The Air Force began ground testing its autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft on May 1, 2025, a program Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said is “about delivering decisive advantage in highly contested environments.” The Army, separately, is fielding small, reusable drones called Launched Effects from aircraft including its AH-64E Apache helicopters, testing one such system launched from an Apache at Redstone Arsenal in February 2026, as part of a 2024 rebalancing of its aviation investments that Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said reflects lessons “from the battlefield—especially in Ukraine—that aerial reconnaissance has fundamentally changed.”
The A-10 traces its roots to the Air Force’s 1966 A-X program, which sought a low-cost, survivable aircraft that could attack tanks and other armor at low altitude. It first saw combat in the 1991 Gulf War, where Warthogs destroyed roughly 900 Iraqi tanks, 2,000 armored vehicles and trucks, and more than 1,200 artillery pieces over more than 8,000 sorties, losing four aircraft to Iraqi surface-to-air missiles. The jet went on to fly over the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona, home to the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group where retired Warthogs are stored, said in February 2024 that its 355th Wing had begun divesting its A-10 fleet.
Key Takeaways
- The Air Force completed its A-10 withdrawal from South Korea, inactivating the 25th Fighter Squadron at Osan Air Base in June 2025.
- The fiscal 2026 defense law caps the drawdown, letting the fleet shrink from 162 aircraft to no fewer than 103.
- Air Force Secretary Troy E. Meink extended A-10 squadrons through 2030, a year later than planned, after combat use in Operation Epic Fury.
- Lawmakers remain split on whether other aircraft can match the A-10’s gun and close air support role.
- No single jet replaces the A-10; the mission is spread across F-16s, F-35s, drones and other systems.