A US Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) aircraft was severely damaged in an Iranian strike on Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, on March 27.
This is not the only instance in which an expensive, high-utility Early Warning aircraft was destroyed off-late.
The attack took place after CENTCOM deployed about 6 of the 16 E-3 Sentry to the region amid a raging conflict with Iran that began with Operation Epic Fury on February 28. It also injured about 10 US soldiers and damaged at least five air refueling tankers.
Tehran announced that the Shahed-136 one-way attack drone was used in the strike that damaged the AWACS aircraft.
“This $20,000 low-cost #Shahed 136 destroyed a $700 million E-3 #AWACS as it attempted to flee the runway,” handles linked to the Iranian government and consulates wrote on X on March 29, 2026. Additionally, a photo of an alleged Shahed-136 sporting kill marks from an E-3, along with those from a Patriot radar array AN/MPQ-65, a THAAD radar AN/TPY-2, and an early warning FPS-132, was published on social media, though its veracity could not be established.
The targeting of the E-3 is in line with the popular combat strategy of destroying not only fighter jets but also their enablers, such as Early Warning aircraft and refueling tankers.
This asymmetric approach seeks to push high-value assets farther from the frontline, making strikes on Iran difficult & risky, while eroding the adversary’s overall air superiority.
Notably, this marks the first combat loss of an E-3 in its nearly 50-year history and highlights vulnerabilities in US forward-deployed air power.
The USAF describes the E-3 as “an airborne warning and control system, or AWACS, aircraft with an integrated command and control battle management, or C2BM, surveillance, target detection, and tracking platform. The aircraft provides an accurate, real-time picture of the battle space to the Joint Air Operations Center.”
The E-3 Sentry’s radar can detect and track aircraft, missiles, and ships up to 250 miles, which has helped the US military forces with early warning of Iranian ballistic missile launches and drones.
Additionally, the Sentry can track friendly and hostile air and naval movements over a wide area of the battle space from its perch, and its look-down radar capability offers special advantages for spotting and tracking low-flying threats, such as cheap and expendable one-way attack drones employed by Tehran and cruise missiles.
The incident has also exposed gaps in the US’s future AWACS capability, particularly following the Pentagon’s decision to shelve the procurement of the E-7 Wedgetail aircraft, which was earlier considered a successor to the Sentry, as EurAsian Times had explained.
While the damage to the E-3 is unprecedented and a major setback to the United States, the attack appears to be the latest in a string of incidents that have either badly damaged or destroyed early warning aircraft globally.
AWACS / AEW&C Aircraft in Danger
AWACS/AEW&C aircraft act as the ‘eyes in the sky’ for fighter jets. These platforms not only detect enemy aircraft, but also guide combat jets and their missiles, enabling them to engage targets while keeping their own radars switched off.
Early Warning aircraft are extremely rare, expensive, and valuable, and often operate far behind the front lines, out of reach of the enemy, where they provide a picture of the battlefield.
These cutting-edge features and tactical utility also make these aircraft a high-priority target, because destroying or degrading a hostile aircraft creates “blind spots,” delaying the detection of incoming attacks and reducing reaction time for intercepts.
Since a single AWACS can enable dozens of fighters to operate more effectively than they could on their own, destroying an AWACS could be even more impactful than destroying an individual fighter jet.
In fact, “first kill the AWACS” is often emphasized in exercises and doctrine as an integral part of the effort to destroy the enemy’s integrated air picture.
On January 14, 2024, Ukrainian forces shot down an A-50U AEW&C aircraft while it operated over the Sea of Azov, near the occupied Ukrainian coast. A US-supplied Patriot PAC-2 missile allegedly shot down the aircraft.
Later, on February 23, 2024, Ukraine downed a second A-50U, this time deeper inside Russian territory over or near Krasnodar Krai, east of the Sea of Azov. The A-50 was shot down by Ukraine’s Soviet-origin S-200 air defense system in a joint operation involving the Air Force and military intelligence (GUR).
These back-to-back, expensive losses proved to be a massive setback for Russia, which had only a handful of these crucial platforms. Russia reportedly grounded its remaining A-50 fleet and deployed Su-30SM fighters to escort them to avoid Ukrainian shootouts.
However, local Ukrainian news sources claimed that at least two more A-50s were hit during Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb in June 2025.
Meanwhile, in South Asia, an Indian S-400 air defense system reportedly shot down a Pakistan Air Force Saab Erieye-2000 flying radar during the border conflict in May 2025.
“We have at least five fighters confirmed killed and one large aircraft, which could be an ELINT aircraft or an AEW&C aircraft, which was taken out from a distance of about 300 kilometers, which is the largest-ever recorded surface-to-air kill that we can talk about,” the Indian Air Force (IAF) Air Chief Marshal A.P. Singh said on August 9, 2025.
In addition, Pakistan may have even lost a second Saab Erieye-2000 in an Indian missile strike on Pakistan’s Bholari Air Base, as acknowledged by PAF’s ex-Air Marshal Masood Akhtar.
Officially, Pakistan has not admitted to any losses.
Notably, AWACS/AEW&C platforms are generally considered more vulnerable than most combat aircraft in high-threat environments, though they are not “easy targets” when properly employed. The vulnerabilities essentially originate from design trade-offs that prioritize powerful radar coverage over stealth, speed, or self-defense.
- Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
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