● MQ-9 REAPER TRACKER135REMAINING▼
MQ-9 REAPER // USAF FLEET● TRACKING

▮REMAINING MQ-9S▮

135▼ 95 SINCE SEP 2024

As of May 20, 2026 · source: Military Times

135 IN SERVICEREQ. FLOOR 189

A sourced count of how many MQ-9 Reaper drones remain in the U.S. Air Force fleet. The headline figure is the most recent total the Air Force has stated publicly — not a guess. Every number on this page links to its source.

135
REMAINING
−54
BELOW FLOOR
−95
NET CHANGE
38
DOCUMENTED LOSSES
$1.08B
COMBAT LOSS COST

Net change is the shift in the official total since Sep 2024 (230) — it includes planned retirements, not just losses, so it won't match documented losses. Combat-loss cost is an estimate. Why?

01FLEET TOTAL OVER TIME

Each point is an officially-stated total, with its own source in the log below. The line is drawn between reported figures and does not imply the exact count on the days in between.

02LOSS LOG

38 airframes documented below, newest first — recorded for context, not summed into the headline count.

Apr 7, 2026−24

24 MQ-9s lost in Operation Epic Fury (U.S.-Iran war)

A Congressional Research Service report states the U.S. lost 24 MQ-9 Reapers during the 2026 war with Iran — most shot down by air defenses, some destroyed on the ground at regional bases. Roughly 20% of the fleet.

combatconfirmed
Dec 16, 2024−1

MQ-9 ditched in the Mediterranean after propeller loss

A 432nd Wing MQ-9 lost its propeller mid-flight (a gearbox spiral lock ring failure) and was intentionally ditched in the Mediterranean Sea. An Accident Investigation Board put the loss at about $13 million.

crashconfirmed

03METHODOLOGY

Scope. U.S. Air Force MQ-9 / MQ-9A Reaper (Active force + Air National Guard). Holdings of other services and foreign operators are not included.

The headline number. The big figure is the most recent fleet total the U.S. Air Force has stated publicly (135, as of May 20, 2026). It is taken directly from a sourced figure — it is not derived by subtracting the losses listed in the log.

Why not just subtract? The fleet has shrunk from 230 (Sep 30, 2024) for more reasons than combat — planned retirements and drawdowns also reduce the count. And loss reports overlap: Houthi claims, U.S. acknowledgements, and journalist tallies do not line up one-to-one. Summing the log would produce a falsely-precise, wrong number.

Combat-loss cost. The dollar figure multiplies airframes lost to enemy action (shootdowns and combat — not crashes) by an assumed unit cost. Uses an approximate ~$30M per airframe. Reported MQ-9 unit costs vary widely by configuration — from about $13M for a bare airframe to over $56M for a full system with sensors and ground stations — so the combat-loss total is a rough estimate.

  • ▸The headline figure is the most recent officially-stated fleet total, NOT a sum of the loss events below.
  • ▸Loss events are documented individually for context. Yemen tallies in particular overlap between Houthi claims and U.S. acknowledgements, so events should not be added together to derive the fleet size.

Confidence levels. CONFIRMED = acknowledged by an official U.S. source or investigation. REPORTED = credible reporting or an adversary claim not yet officially confirmed. ESTIMATED = inferred from partial information.