Summary
- The damaged B-2 Spirit bomber, the Spirit of Hawaii, will not be repaired due to high costs.
- The Air Force’s decision signifies confidence in the upcoming B-21 Raider as the B-2 fleet is reduced to 19.
- The B-2 fleet has rarely been deployed in combat in recent years, likely influencing the decision.
For decades, the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bomber has long served as a key piece of the United States’ nuclear triad and is one of the few true modern penetrating bombers in existence. However, amid cost overruns and many beginning to question the need for such a large bomber fleet, only 21 jets were ever built out of a fleet that would have been 165.
The United States Air Force (USAF) has pursued the development of the B-2’s successor, the B-21 Raider, for years, and the B-2 days have increasingly become numbered. On 13 May, the organization confirmed that it would not repair a B-2 bomber that had been severely damaged in an accident in December 2022.
Photo: United States Air Force
As a result, the B-2 fleet has been cut down to just 19 aircraft, with the arrival of the first operational B-21 Raiders still years away. The USAF’s decision not to pursue the damaged B-2’s repair strongly indicates the organization’s confidence in developing the B-21. In this article, we will explore what the Air Force’s decision this week means for the immediate and long-term future of the nation’s penetrating bomber force.
This week’s news
On 10 December 2022, the B-2 Spirit bomber bearing the designation AV-16, also named the Spirit of Hawaii, caught fire upon landing following an emergency landing that had been attempted due to an in-flight malfunction. According to Military.com, the aircraft took weeks to clear off of the runway, and the service quickly began a safety investigation into the cause of the accident, alongside a grounding of the entire B-2 fleet. The fire caused severe damage to one of the plane’s wings, and the Air Force indicated that extensive repairs would be needed before the jet’s reentry to service.
This week, however, the organization determined that it would be permanently retiring the aircraft as it would simply be too costly to fix the damaged plane. The organization has chosen to divest the aircraft entirely, indicating that the plane would prove uneconomical to repair, especially with the service entry of the B-2’s successor so near on the horizon. In a statement made by a spokesperson for the Air Force, this notion emerged loud and clear:
“It takes a while for aircraft to make it through the process and fall off of our inventory. As the report says, it is uneconomical to repair.”
According to Defense One, the B-2 Spirit costs nearly $2 billion per aircraft, making it the most expensive plane ever produced. The production line is currently closed (the last operational unit was delivered in 2000), so repairing the B-2 would be costly and slow.
The Spirit of Hawaii is not the first B-2 bomber to be completely written off by the Air Force due to an accident. On 23 February 2008, the Spirit of Kansas, another B-2, crashed moments after takeoff from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam and was fully destroyed as a result, even though both pilots were able to safely eject.
At the time, the incident was determined to be the most expensive plane crash in history. Before this week, it also marked the only time a B-2 had been operationally lost.
The first time repairs have been turned down
In the past, the Air Force has decided to spend the money to fix damaged B-2s, demonstrating that the stealth bomber can be repaired, albeit at an extremely high price. The Spirit of Washington, a bomber that had been in service since 1994, was severely damaged by a fire in 2010. Whiteman Air Force Base said the jet was repaired and returned to service back in 2013.
Photo: Philip Pilosian | Shutterstock
Another B-2, the Spirit of Georgia, was damaged in 2021 following a landing gear collapse. According to The War Zone, the aircraft is currently being repaired at Plant 42, a classified aircraft manufacturing plant operated by the United States Air Force in Antelope Valley, California.

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During both of these incidents, the cost to return B-2 bombers to service was estimated to be over $100 million, and each process took several years to complete. Each time, the Air Force indicated that it would be unable to tolerate the loss of a single B-2 because of its essential and uncompromisable mission role, according to Air and Space Forces.
Times have changed
However, this week’s news has made it evident that the Air Force’s opinion has changed regarding how many B-2s it needs in its inventory to ensure the jets continue to serve their dedicated purposes. With the news of the Spirit of Hawaii‘s retirement this week, the service only maintains 19 operational B-2s.
Photo: BlueBarronPhoto | Shutterstock
The Air Force is in a unique gray area regarding its long-range penetrating bomber fleet. The organization has only budgeted B-2 research and development costs through 2028, meaning that it does not see the aircraft remaining in its fleet for much longer. The aircraft’s design was first developed in the 1980s, and the jet has been in service for over twenty years, meaning that it has long been due for an upgrade.
According to an earlier analysis of the B-21 Raider from Simple Flying, the next-generation stealth bomber will not be ready to enter service until 2030, only recently completing its first test flight. The B-21 program does have lofty goals and plans to replace not just the B-2 fleet but also all the B-1 Lancer and even some aging B-52 Stratofortress aircraft.
Photo: Mike Mareen | Shutterstock
While the organization currently maintains 19 B-2 aircraft, not all are combat-ready at all times. At least one is typically in Northrop’s long-term maintenance facility, while another few are typically in the shop at Whiteman Air Force Base. Additionally, a couple more are typically undergoing flight testing at Edwards Air Force Base in California at any given time. As a result, the organization usually only maintains somewhere between 12 and 14 combat-ready B-2s, meaning that the loss of one unit is strategically not all that significant.

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B-2s have also seen extremely limited combat in recent years, and nowhere near the entire fleet has been used at any given time. In March 2011, B-2s were used in combat during Operation Odyssey Dawn, an allied enforcement of a no-fly zone in Libya. B-2s were also used during joint military exercises in South Korea amid rising regional tensions in 2013. In January 2017, a pair of B-2s attacked an ISIS training camp in Libya, killing over 80 migrants.