Air Force to ground some cargo planes in Iraq

WASHINGTON – The Air Force said Friday it is grounding 30 of its oldest C-130 cargo planes and putting flight restrictions on 60 others after unexpectedly discovering severe wing cracks.

The moves include about a dozen C-130s that have been hauling supplies in Iraq, but that is not expected to have a major impact on the war effort. Gen. John Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, told a Senate committee Thursday that the planes in Iraq would be replaced by newer ones.

Jumper said the grounding of older C-130s is a reflection of the fact that parts of the Air Force’s fleet of aircraft are aging to the point where he worries that a catastrophic problem will be discovered suddenly with an entire category of aircraft.

In its 2006 defense spending blueprint sent to Congress on Monday, the administration proposed to end production of the C-130, which entered service in 1954 and has been in continuous production ever since.

“This termination will have no impact on the Air Force’s tactical airlift capabilities since there are a large number of C-130s in the current inventory with many years of service life remaining,” the administration said in a report to Congress justifying its budget proposals.