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On Mar. 27, 2026 multiple United States service members were wounded and several aircraft damaged, including an E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft and multiple KC-135 Stratotankers during an Iranian missile and drone attack on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
According to Air & Space Forces Magazine, around 10 service members were wounded in the attack, including two with serious injuries. As reported by Defence Blog, the strike involved at least one missile impact on the base, along with the use of multiple drones.
Command coordination and ability to maintain continuous air presence over operational areas can be affected by damaging these platforms: in fact sortie generation and mission planning can be affected by even a limited disruption to refueling or airborne command assets.
Noteworthy, on Mar. 25 US Central Command (CENTCOM) commander Adm. Brad Cooper said launches of Iranian missiles and drones were down by more than 90 percent since the start of the conflict on Feb. 28.
“We have damaged or destroyed over two-thirds of Iran’s missile, drone, and naval production facilities and shipyards. We are on a path to completely eliminate Iran’s wider military manufacturing apparatus,” Cooper said in a video statement.
However, as the satellite images in this post show, the Mar. 27 strike demonstrates that Iran still has the capability of conducting missile and drone attacks against US positions in the region, in spite of Cooper statements.
Prince Sultan Air Base (PSAB) is an active United States Air Force Air Expeditionary Base operating in Saudi Arabia and assigned to the US Air Forces Central Command (AFCENT).
More than two decades ago Prince Sultan Air Base was the largest expeditionary operations center in AFCENT’s area of responsibility before operations shifted to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, in 2003.
Since its re-establishment, PSAB has acted as a clear and consistent contributor to CENTCOM’s objectives in the region.
The E-3 Sentry is 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 battlespace to the Joint Air Operations Center. AWACS provides situational awareness of friendly, neutral and hostile activity, command and control of an area of responsibility, battle management of theater forces, all-altitude and all-weather surveillance of the battle space, and early warning of enemy actions during joint, allied, and coalition operations.
The E-3 Sentry is a modified Boeing 707/320 commercial airframe with a rotating radar dome. The dome is 30 feet (9.1 meters) in diameter, six feet (1.8 meters) thick, and is held 11 feet (3.33 meters) above the fuselage by two struts. It contains a radar subsystem that permits surveillance from the Earth’s surface up into the stratosphere, over land or water. The radar has a range of more than 250 miles (375.5 kilometers). The radar combined with an identification friend or foe, or IFF, subsystem can look down to detect, identify and track enemy and friendly low-flying aircraft by eliminating ground clutter returns that confuse other radar systems.
Photo credit: U.S. Air Force
Dario Leone: All articles
