The UK will be left “dangerously exposed” when it cuts a fleet of special forces aircraft that played a key role in evacuating British nationals from Sudan and has transported vital ammunition for Ukraine, multiple defence sources have warned.
Internal documents seen by Sky News reveal that a newer type of transport plane, which will take over the role of the C-130J Hercules by the end of next month, is still plagued by problems, with two-thirds of the fleet listed as unavailable for flying missions in early May.
Heightening concerns, the Atlas A400M has yet to be cleared to perform all the “niche” functions of the C-130 in special forces missions – one of the most critical areas of defence.
This is understood to include dropping a boat out the back of a plane for hostage rescue missions at sea. “So that’s the SBS (Special Boat Service) and certain parts of the SAS (Special Air Service) f****d,” a Royal Air Force source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
It can also be revealed:
• Three C-130 planes took part in the UK’s Sudan evacuation – codenamed “Operation Polarbear” – along with four A400M airframes, according to analysis by Sky News’ Data & Forensics Unit.
• A senior source in the Sudanese air force said a number of A400M planes – he did not know from which nation as other countries operated them too – caused the most damage to the runway at an airbase outside Khartoum that was used for evacuations. The UK has said its engineers carried out “urgent repairs… due to deterioration of the runway surface as a result of the volume of international flights”.
• Three of the four British A400M planes thought to have been deployed in Sudan developed faults, according to an internal document. One of the aircraft will be out of action for weeks. None of the C-130 aircraft became “unserviceable”. The Ministry of Defence said all flights were carried out with “no unserviceable issues”.
• One C-130 plane in an emergency standby role had to deliver freight and troops to an RAF base in Cyprus during the Sudan mission because no A400M was available.
As part of a major defence review in 2021, the RAF agreed to retire its fleet of 14 C-130 aircraft within two years – more than a decade earlier than planned – under cost-cutting pressure from the Treasury, then headed by Rishi Sunak.
Cutting an entire fleet is one of the simplest ways to save money over the long term. But it comes at a cost to capability
Now as prime minister and with war raging in Ukraine, Mr Sunak faces the uncomfortable reality of seeing his military’s capability to transport troops and equipment by air shrink at a time of growing security threats. At the same time, his C-130s – which still have many more years’ worth of flying – are already being sold to buyers, including the US Navy, the Bangladeshi air force and the Bahraini air force.
In contrast, France and Germany are investing in a new, joint C-130 fleet despite both countries operating the A400M as well.
An RAF source said ditching the “backbone” of the UK’s transport fleet – the C-130 is used by regular personnel across the military as well as special forces – is “probably one of the worst decisions made in the post-World War 2 era”.
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However, a Ministry of Defence (MOD) spokesperson said the A400M is a more modern and capable aircraft than the C-130 and was “central” to the Sudan evacuations, which ran from late April until early May.
“It is a waste of taxpayer money to sustain two types of similar aircraft, which is why the RAF is working at pace to ensure the capability delivered by the C-130J is replicated through Atlas A400M or delivered in a different way,” the spokesperson said.
“We are proud to house the biggest tactical transport fleet seen in the UK for the last 50 years.”
RAF chiefs have already given assurances that the A400M will be able to perform the remainder of the “niche” special forces capabilities that the C-130 can do by 2025.
The C-130J came into service in 1999 as what is known as a “tactical transport aircraft”.
This means it can airdrop troops, military kit or disaster relief stores from small airfields in hard-to-reach areas. The planes can fly incredibly low, hugging the ground, to avoid enemy radars and have the ability to drop special forces at high and low altitudes.
Manufactured by the American defence company Lockheed Martin, the C-130 also experienced initial “teething problems” when it first entered service but it has gone on to become one of the most trusted airframes in the fleet.
The A400M, built by the European aerospace and defence firm Airbus, is a generational upgrade, able to carry more, fly faster and go further.
But it is much larger so less able to fit on all the different variety of landing strips used by the C-130, according to RAF sources.
It also suffers from persistent problems with availability because of faults and other issues almost a decade after the RAF first started operating the aircraft.
An internal document seen by Sky News, dated 6 May, 2023, listed the service state of the RAF’s transport fleet – a situation that fluctuates up and down.
On that day, seven of the force’s 21 A400M aircraft were ranked as green, which meant serviceable – able to fly or on a mission already.
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Six were listed under a red-colour-coded column marked as “scheduled maintenance/unserviceable” – though one of the six was coloured grey. Red typically means out of action for a short period, an RAF source said.
On the spreadsheet, a further three aircraft were colour-coded blue under a column entitled “depth maintenance”. This appears to signal a longer-term issue or maintenance work.
The final five, also in blue, were listed as undergoing a “trial/upgrade” in Spain.
By contrast, a separate document showed that six out of seven of the RAF’s remaining C-130 fleet were colour-coded green – ready for action or on operations.
The seventh was marked as red but only because it was being readied for “disposal”.
The MOD signalled that availability rates for the A400M have improved by about 25% compared with 18 months ago after increased efforts by the RAF and Airbus. This figure is expected to rise further in the coming weeks as more aircraft return from upgrades.
Figures released by the MOD offered a sense of the respective contributions by the C-130 and the A400M in the Sudan evacuations.
The newer, larger aircraft conducted three more sorties than the C-130 – 22 compared with 19 – and extracted around 1,700 evacuees versus around 700 by the older fleet, according to the official data.
The bulk of the flights were in and out of Wadi Seidna, outside Khartoum. But the aircraft did also fly from Port Sudan.
Analysis by Sky News’ Data & Forensics Unit has identified three C-130s as being part of the operation and four A400M aircraft.
The MOD declined to confirm how many of either of the aircraft were involved but did note that the A400M carried more than 240 evacuees on one flight, whereas the maximum load on a C-130 had been about 100 fewer people.
However, numbers were not released on which aircraft brought in and out the most military personnel involved in the mission.
“Clearly, the [C-130]J was used fairly heavily during that evacuation,” said Sophy Antrobus, a former RAF officer, while stressing that she did not know specific details.
“If you’re at a stage of an evacuation operation where perhaps people are struggling to get to the location… then you may have to take smaller numbers of people because that’s what you’ve got processed,” said Ms Antrobus, who now works as a research fellow at the Freeman Air and Space Institute at King’s College London.
“Therefore, actually, a smaller aircraft can get there and back in a way that makes the absolute maximum of your assets… So there’s all sorts of reasons why the C-130 would have been very important in Sudan.”
In addition to Sudan, Sky News understands that a C-130 had to step in to fly UK special forces during a training exercise in the United States earlier this year because the A400M that was meant to perform the task broke down.
In a separate incident, a Middle East tour by the Red Arrows in late 2022 had to be supported by the C-130 team because, yet again, there was not a spare A400M.
The A400M has taken over all of what are called the National Standby roles – aircraft that must be on three, six and 12 hours’ notice to move in an emergency,
However, the RAF source said that the C-130 is frequently – “literally weekly” – having to be held at short-notice-to-move because of ongoing issues of availability with the A400M.
The C-130 fleet has also played a part in the UK’s support to Ukraine, transporting ammunition to a base in next-door Poland before it is moved across the border.
Boris Johnson even used one of the aircraft to fly to Poland before the then prime minister went by train to Kyiv in April 2022 on his first visit since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale war.
With the UK planning to sell its C-130 fleet, eight of the airframes have already been withdrawn from service. The remaining six, which operate out of RAF Brize Norton, a sprawling base in Oxfordshire, will gradually be retired by the end of June.
The move will leave the UK “dangerously exposed”, the RAF source said.
“Especially in the sense of UK special forces’ capabilities. It leaves them without the tools they need to perform their full role.”
Two other sources inside the RAF as well as three former RAF officers said they thought it was wrong to retire the C-130, especially when it is still needed.
Robert Courts, a Conservative MP and member of the defence select committee, said he was “very concerned”.
“At a time when the air mobility force is being asked to do more – it is one of the most heavily tasked bits of defence – we are having less availability of people and of airframes to do it,” Mr Courts said, standing outside RAF Brize Norton, which is in his constituency.
Andy Netherwood, a former RAF transport aircraft pilot, said there would no longer be a type of plane to carry mid-level loads. Chinook helicopters can take anything up to 10 tonnes, the C-130 can carry about 20 tonnes, while the A400 is designed to hold about 37 tonnes.
Asked what he the impact of fewer aircraft might be on the RAF, Mr Netherwood said: “When a disaster occurs or a conflict occurs and there’s a need for the UK to intervene… I’m afraid there’s going to be far fewer options.”
Additional reporting by Yousra Elbagir, Africa correspondent
