Many decades ago.

I am surprised they still fly them.

And are all retro fitted with modern equipment. I believe they are built on a 737 frame but I could be remembering incorrectly.

I’m not sure.

During the Vietnam war they were stationed in a number of locations in the far east.

They have retired the jets. There are a handful still in operation. I feel sick to my stomach over this.

No tankers or cargo planes have ever had ejection seats.

That was my Dad's plane (Boeing engineer) from its beginning until 1973 and everyone gets it wrong. People think the KC-135 was adapted from the 707. I love watching the takeoff videos of that plane - the loud ones!

Last edited Thu Mar 12, 2026, 07:58 PM - Edit history (1)

My USAF Dad flew these in Viet Nam.
KC 135.

Best squadron in the USAF.

The crew got out here but where are they?

Link to tweet

Pilot, co-pilot, maybe navigator, boom operator, maybe some medical staff.
RN's or med techs?

IDK.

The plane is lost?

Air Force families know this is a not a good statement from the brass.
It is not good when the USAF loses track of an airplane.

"Friendly Airspace".

They just don't want to admit they are losing aircraft.

than to just admit they've suffered combat losses? Accidents imply our military is poorly trained and poorly commanded.

Aviation fuel is hi-octane fluid...Maybe some sparking during the process during the refuel process.

When I first heard the story I assumed that there has been some kind of problem with the refueling itself, but if they are both KC-135s, I don't get it. Surely they weren't refueling each other.

But I will say that I have witnessed training events where refueling tankers were working in tandem such that they were not all that far apart as they acted as a two pump fuel station. I don;t know what their actual practices are but I can imagine that safety measures are being slimmed down for everything related to operations ordered by the clowns in DC.

It was in 2024, I saw them coming when I was looking at my flight software. They weren't even following a refueling route, and the software said they were 25 feet apart vertically. They looked like one plane with two sets of wings from my backyard.

At one point. For some reason, I assume a training session, but they weren't extremely far up, I heard them coming long before they crossed the valley. I watched them go over once and then again about two hours later, I was out working a field on a farm so that was in 2019.

a 10 mile separation radius around their refuel sector flightpath.

Some sources I saw said the plane that landed safely was also a KC 135 but I'm not sure that's accurate and I agree that it would be very weird if so.

were both KC-135s.

It's not pilot error, IMHO. Whatever audiotapes are available, probably won't get released. So we will never know what transpired. Have our comms been compromised?

All I can say is....Trump/Putin/Xi are all in on world domination, Where the fuck is 007?

All metal parts involved in fuel handling is either brass or aluminum because of the issue of sparks, this is true of ground transport as well as aircraft. Probably stricter requirements for aircraft since AVgas is so volatile.

Pre-factual speculation on my part.

Having been in the petroleum transport business for a short spell, I can attest that it is fact. Aluminum dust is nasty stuff but you can't get it to spark if all it touches it aluminum or brass. Same with brass.

I was a sales prospect that didn't pan out. Mutual agreement, actually.

Tankers don’t carry avgas.
Also, sometime in the 90s, the airforce transitioned from JP-4 to JP-8, which is even less flammable and volatile.

So thanks for the correction. AVgas was some nasty shit, I hated dealing with it.

Our neighbor’s kid was in the refueling unit but not on the plane.

On edit: there's a three-person crew for this aircraft, not six.

If this was a crash, the crew almost certainly perished.

It sounds like two KC135’s and two fighter aircraft were performing aerial refueling when some sort of collision occurred resulting in damage, with the loss of one of the 135’s. It doesn’t seem like this was due to hostile action, but we shall see…

Last edited Thu Mar 12, 2026, 09:11 PM - Edit history (1)

refueler specialist is a no-brainer.

They might have used, like you see jumpers exit on teevee.

Or not.

in a catastrophic event hence......ejection seat systems. Logically, that should have been part of the redesign mods to make the frame into a tanker.

I've never been on one of these so I couldn't say, they're pretty big so I can't really think of a quick exit location. But you're right, there should have been some way for them to exit.

You aren't exiting your seat., normally.

Link to tweet

Thinking about this....for the 1st time. really....KC-135 crews are kinda fucked. Pilots got to fly and navigate, refueler refuels. Not a whole lot of EW awareness, And no chance if you get a hypersonic missile locked on.

because I know little about military stuff.

With 17whole hours in the left seat on a Cessna 172, I am clueless as well.

Only fighters and fighter trainers and bombers have ejection seats.
Transport planes and tankers have never been designed to have ejection seats.

Fighters and bombers are expected to have to spend a lot of time in contested airspace and operate under conditions where any emergency turns catastrophic basically instantly. Cargo planes and tankers rarely fly in contested airspace and if they do, they usually are under escort. For their normal missions, emergencies aren't usually catastrophic immediately, they are usually emergencies that happen over minutes and allow them to try to handle it while still in the air. The actual plane designs themselves is the other issue.Cargo planes can have multiple decks with personnel on each. Some have crew moving around a lot. They would need a different escape method. Having a single one, like simply bailing out, simplifies things. Ejection seats means the entire structure needs to be designed around it, its not something that can easily be retrofitted into existing designs. And the weight of the systems is the other issue, which is kind of important for cargo and tankers. Every pound of weight tied to ejection systems is less cargo and fuel they can carry every trip. And for planes that are expected to have a very low need for such systems, the trade off isnt worth it. Everything with the military has compromises between efficiency, safety, mission effectiveness, and cost. And mission effectiveness usually takes priority.

I think if they eat a missile. they are fucked...unless there is an ejection strategy.

They stick to controlled airspace further back from the front. Their exposure to missiles is supposed to be minimal, so escape methods beyond parachutes aren't considered important enough. The fuel they can carry to refuel the fighters and bombers is deemed a more important use of weight and space. Mission scope sets the priorities and ejection systems are not one for tankers and cargo aircraft because of the environment they are designed to operate in. Is it a risk? Definitely, but its been deemed an acceptable risk.

If nothing else, Ukraine has learned to take out the fuel supply chain before delivering their product. Obviously drones aren't the issue....but hpersonic missiles ought to be a concern.

I know there's not much that can be done on present fleet ejection limitations, but perhaps thought can be given to crew ejections systems going forward. The human /experience becomes pretty damn import assets when the moment comes that computers calculate that the impact will be certain. Seconds after crew ejection, computer puts the tanker down/away from the crews. Maybe more future design toward section type pod injection that really protects the crew.

Apparently can have 1 crew to monitor fatigue , I don't know how that is done in flight.

Link to tweet

Curiouser and curiouser.

And then there's the missing or "lost" one which is curious too. There are pics of a KC-135 multiple sources claim the Islamic Resistance of Iraq’s air defense system shot down, but who knows. They're claiming they shot it down with a P-358 surface-to-air missile.


Some are speculating that the Iraqi resistance may have used surface-to-air missiles against the aircraft operating in western Iraq, forcing them to perform evasive maneuvers, which could be the cause of the alleged accident. That seems plausible to me.

So what really happened?